


It Was Only Just A Dream

by Motherof4dragons



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Coma, F/M, Medical, Medical Procedures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-10-19 00:36:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 56,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17591426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Motherof4dragons/pseuds/Motherof4dragons
Summary: He has the perfect life.  A job he loved, A wife he worshiped, and a daughter they adore.  And then he woke up.  How is it possible to miss something that you never really had to begin with?  And could he possibly get it back.**Jackson wakes up from a coma to learn that he never had a relationship with April outside of being the best of friends.  While his mind catches up, his heart refuses to accept this new reality.





	1. He Wakes

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading fanfiction for a while now and decided it was time to take matters into my own hands.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson wakes from a coma, and all is not how he remembers it.

Jackson

God that beeping is annoying. It’s making my head hurt. Why does my head hurt? Everything feels heavy, like I’m swimming thru quicksand. I manage to pry my eyes open and they’re dry and scratchy. I’m in the hospital? Yes, I’m in the hospital. Grey Sloan from the looks of it. I try to look around, but my head is as heavy as an anvil. I can feel the IV’s in my arms. The pads on my chest. The beeping noises were my monitors. I get my head turned enough to get a good look. My sats are steady and even, blood pressure slightly elevated. My IV pole has multiple drips, but my eyes are too fuzzy to read what they are. I’m not intubated, so that’s a good sign at least. What in the hell happened?

I open my mouth to try to call out, but my throat is as dry and scratchy as my eyes. My whole-body aches, and my stomach burns and screams in protest when I try to sit up in the bed. I reach a hand out tentatively and feel the stiches from an obvious operation. What happened?!? Where’s April? Is April ok? What about the baby? As I start to struggle and panic, the machines start to wail to alert that my pulse has sky rocketed, blood pressure soaring. I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. I feel it, but I can’t rein it in. What in the hell happened?!?!? Bailey comes rushing into the room, takes one look at my wide eyes and heaving chest, and pivots on her heel to yell into the hallway “Page Shepherd, he’s awake!” Stars blur my vision as I struggle to get up and the last thing, I see is a sea of blue scrubs and white jackets running this way as I once again lose consciousness.

\--

This time I’m sure I was only out for a matter of minutes. Just enough time for the room and hallway to fill up with people. As my eyes readjust, I start to search the faces, but I don’t see the one person I’m looking for. I swallow thickly, trying to work up enough moisture to use my voice, and Bailey sees my struggle and lifts a glass of water to my lips. As I’m reaching out, she pulls the straw back and admonishes me “little sips”, then she lets me drink. I keep it brief, though I am desperately parched. This time I do get the words out. “April? Where’s April? Are they ok?” Everybody looks at each other and then back to me. “She’s fine Jackson. She’s in a trauma. We’ll let her know you’re awake.” “What’s the last thing you remember?” Asks Shepherd. He’s giving me instructions to follow his fingers, checking my pupil dilation with his light. I’m already exhausted again, but I’m not going to feel better until I know with my own eyes that my girls are ok.

“Can I have another sip of water?” I ask. Bailey complies, then they look at me expectantly. I look around again, noticing Alex and Arizona standing on the outskirts. Webber is there as well, talking to whom I can only assume is my mother on his cell phone. He tells her he’ll call her back and settles in to listen to me. The sea of nurses in the background is easing up as word passes that I am awake and stable, and they go off to get back to their other patients.

“What’s the last thing you remember” Shepherd asks me a second time. “Ummmm” I reach my hand up to rub my head and feel there are bandages up there that I didn’t take notice of before. I have a heavy sprinkling of beard as well. Looking around one more time for April, I say “April and I had a late night at the hospital. There was a trauma that came in, a home fire. Burns over 40% of her body. She survived surgery, and after she was settled in the ICU, we took Hattie home. I guess the last thing I remember is listening to April sing to Hattie thru the baby monitor.”

When I finish, the room is silent. I don’t miss the looks passing over their faces, but I’m too tired to care about it. “Someone had better tell me what happened.” I see Karev and Robbins lean together and whisper, then Robbins steps forward and squeezes my foot, giving me a soft smile. Then she turns and takes off at a fast trot out of the room. Hopefully to locate my wife.

The remaining Doctors, my friends, look at each other, passing communication thru years of practiced looks alone. Dr. Bailey steps up, rubbing soft circles on the blanket trying to sooth either me or herself. I can’t tell which. Maybe both.

“You were in an accident. From what the police have put together, you went out for your normal run, but came across a woman being harassed by a group of men. When you stepped in to try to stop it, they turned their attention to you instead. 3 against 1 wasn’t a very fair fight.” At that point Karev pipes up, arms still crossed over his chest, “Don’t let her fool you man, you kicked their asses too.” Bailey shoots Karev a death glare while the other men in the room snicker, looking at each other and studiously avoiding meeting Bailey’s eye. “A passerby called the police. Two of the three assailants ran off, but the third was down with you. When the paramedics arrived, you were already unconscious. Another hospital was closer, but Matthew recognized you and brought you to us instead.” Matthew?? When did he come back into our district again? Thinking about April’s ex just makes me more confused and I realized I’ve zoned out of Baileys story…” Concussion and small head lack that healed on its own. 2 Broken ribs and a few other cuts and bruises. However, they damaged your right kidney beyond repair. We had to remove it. We were worried that the other kidney was failing as well, but several weeks of dialysis and pressures seems to have taken care of that.” Weeks. She said weeks.

“How long have I been out?” I ask. Shepherd takes up the story from here. “We kept you under for the first few days. They beat you pretty bad, and we were worried about bleeding after a cerebral contusion, but you held your own. Nothing outside of stitches and monitoring were required. Sorry you couldn't do your own stitches, but they are mainly in your hair lines, and I promise you'll still be pretty." That at least gets a small smile from everyone. "Once we weaned you off the meds, you came to twice, but never for more than a minute or so. You’ve been unconscious for a little over 3 weeks now.”

3 weeks? My mind is spinning. The machine starts to beep in warning again as panic starts to set in and Bailey reaches out and grabs my hand, hard. That helps. “Where’s April, I want my wife!” “April Kepner?” Shepherd clarifies with a look of profound confusion on his face. Looking around, I see the silent communication again. When I look at him like he’s the idiot, he nods to Webber, who walks out towards the nursing station. I hear him ordering a head CT and MRI stat when Shepherd says to me “Jackson, you and April Kepner aren’t married.”

 


	2. What was and could have been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get Jackson's first memory from his dream. - smut warning

**It was only just a dream....**

 

_“_

Chapter 2 (the beginning)

 

_“We’re falling apart. Meredith’s sick. And Alex…What the hell was he thinking?”_

_We’re in the restaurant of the hotel getting some food. Or I’m getting food at least. She’s sticking to the wine. And April is spiraling again. Or still, since she hasn’t really stopped. But she’s kinda right, I still can’t believe Karev took off back to Seattle. Okay. Time to reign this in before it goes too far._

_“Mnm Hmm. See, you’ve got to put all that out of your head okay? Concentrate on your own game.”_

_April takes a deep breath and says, not for the first time today, “I am a soldier.” I have no idea what the hell she means by that._

_“What?”_

_“Nothing.” She giggles. “Hey but we’re still standing right?”_

_“Hell yea we are!”_

_“Me and You.” She says._

_“Me and You.” Always. We are the only 2 left of our intern class. The original Mercy Westers. If you would have told me 5 years ago that the annoying little mouse with the bland brown hair would end up being my best friend, with red hair blazing around her, I would have laughed in your face. But here we are. With everything we’ve been thru the last 5 years, it’s painful to imagine my life without her when she goes off to whichever fellowship, she takes next year._

_April looks behind us and grimaces when she sees who’s laughing behind._

_“Who is that?”_

_“Oh, that’s the guy who thinks I stole his job. He hates me.”_

_“So, what? He’s a douche. Ah, and here he comes.” Great. Just what we need._

_“No, I want to apologize. I was a tool this afternoon.” Says the douche as he comes up behind us. “No hard feelings?”_

_April puts those Midwestern manners to work. “Sure yeah, no problem. No problem at all. I’m sorry.”_

_She’s sorry? Hell No! “You have nothing to be sorry for.” I tell her._

_Douche just keeps talking though. “I mean the best man wins and all that stuff, right? Or woman, whatever.”_

_His buddy speaks up from behind him, trying to defuse the situation, I guess. “Yea, he’s had a few beers. You know what. And he got bad news today, so we’ll just…”_

_“All I’m saying is, obviously, she can offer something that I can’t offer. “_

_My anger spikes, but I don’t make it a habit of hitting drunks so “All right, everybody’s a little wound up, all right? So big day tomorrow, maybe you should um, go sleep it off.”_

_“Are you the boyfriend? You know, you should watch out next year, ‘cause uh, Ted Stevenson likes himself a redhead.”_

_And the motherfucker has the gall to laugh at me. Exceptions can be made for hitting drunks. I stand up from my seat as his buddy tries to pull him away._

_“All right”_

_“Okay Kevin”_

_“I think you can leave”_

_“Or maybe you found that out already. Is that how you got the job?”_

_And April snaps! One second she’s glaring into the bar, the next she’s up and swinging, punching the Douche right in the eye!”_

_\--_

_We’re still laughing when we make it back to her hotel room._

_“Oh my god that was amazing.”_

_“You just punched a guy”_

_“I just punched a guy!”_

_“You were freaking crazy in there.”_

_“Jackson we are gonna do this. I-I-I can feel it. This is our last night as residents.”_

_“Let’s Hope.”_

_“No stop that! Stop doubting yourself. We freaking kicked that guy’s ass in there. We are going to kick this tests’ ass.” She is glowing as she’s talking, her demeanor completely different from that of an hour ago._

_“How come you’re so confident all of a sudden?”_

_“I am a SOLDIER!” she says emphatically. She’s been spending too much time with Hunt. It’s adorable though._

_“Yea I still don’t know what that means but – “_

_And I am cut off as April throws herself into my arms and kisses me. Oh my god April is kissing me. Like wow. I raise my hands to her hips._

_“April? Umm”_

_“Should I not have done that?” She doesn’t look unsure or repentant. She looks sassy and good. Real good._

_“I um…I” and she’s wrapped around me again._

_“If you want me to stop, just say so, and I’ll stop” she mumbles with her lips still pressed up against mine. The feel of her talking against me like that is intoxicating. But…_

_“I just--You’re—the way you’re kissing me right now, you just…” I drop my voice to a whisper “you’re a virgin. You’re a virgin.”_

_“Yes, because my whole life since I was a kid, I had this idea of how my life was supposed to be, these rules that I was supposed to follow. But I’m not a kid. I’m not the same person I was when I started my residency.” She’s getting closer and closer to me again, vibrating with unexpressed energy._

_“I just punched a guy” and she pulls me in for another kiss.” And it felt really good.” Her smile is infectious, and I feel it duplicated on my own face.” And if something feels really really good, it can’t be bad right._

_“I uh.” Stop Jackson. Get a grip on yourself. Control the situation. You are an Avery for heaven’s sake. You do not deflower virgins._

_“Jackson hey. It’s okay. Really it’s okay.” And the way she bites her lip like that puts an end to the mental lecturing and sets my blood on fire. I wrap my arms around her and carry her into her room._

_\--_

_Why have I never realized how beautiful she is before? I mean of course I knew she was beautiful, but she was April. April is a strictly look don’t touch situation, so better not to think about it._ Was _a look but don’t touch situation. Currently she has her legs wrapped around my waist and her lips are sucking on my tongue. I push my shoes off with my opposite toes every few steps as we enter her room. I haven’t slept with a virgin since I was one, and the thought is a sobering one. I let go of her legs and plop her on the bed, hoping to put some distance between us. I need a moment to breath. But instead she climbs up on her knees and takes off her shirt, and I am done for. We’ve lived together and worked together for years now. This isn’t the first time that I’ve caught a peek at her in her bra. But this time it is just for me, and I love it._

_I am going to mark her, claim her. My only goal for the foreseeable future is to make sure that I am the standard held for any man who comes after me. And then I hate that thought of anyone coming after me so completely it almost makes me stumble. Get out of your head man. She’s got both hands at my belt buckle, trying to lift my shirt and take off my belt simultaneously, I think. I grab her wrists and make her look at me._

_“April” I say one more time. “Are you sure?”_

_“Jaaaackson” she moans out with frustration, and it is the sexiest sound I have ever heard. My cock is instantaneously rock solid. I have to hear that again. And again. I reach up and drag my shirt off over my head and toss it to the floor. “That is so sexy.” I hear her say. Smirking, I think you ain’t seen nothing yet baby. I let her help me with my buckle and push down my pants. Once they hit my ankles, I kick them across the room leaving me standing in nothing but my increasingly tight boxer briefs. “May I?” She asks shyly, then reaches up to touch my cock thru my underwear. I think I may spontaneously combust. She’s normally so unsure of herself, but her hands are firm and eager, her tongue sticking shyly out between her lips. I put my head back and moan. When she reaches to pull my boxers off however, I stop her. Before she can finish asking me what’s wrong, I grab her by the arms and yank her back up onto her knees. I put one arm around her body, pulling her against me and wrap the other up in her mass of red hair. Then I kiss her like I’m going to crawl into her mouth. I wonder where she learned to kiss like this, because she is exceptionally good at it._

_With the flick of my fingers, her bra is undone, and I hurriedly pull it off. The little noise of surprise and pleasure she makes flat out does it for me. Using my hand to pull her head back, I run my lips and tongue over her throat. I pull her earlobe into my mouth and suck on it, nibble on it. As an ENT specialized surgeon after all, I feel it is my duty to make sure she gets a proper examination. As I work my way down her collar bones, I unwrap my hands from her hair and reach down to take a breast in each hand. I feel their weight in my hands, admire the smooth texture of her skin. I must get a good look before I put them in my mouth._

_“You are so beautiful.” I say, and she is. Even by the dim light in the room, her alabaster skin glows, freckles scattered over her chest and shoulders. I dip my head and take one of her breasts into my mouth, squeezing and caressing the other one with my thumb rubbing over her nipple. The moan she lets out is the loudest yet, and it takes all my self-control not to strip her and take her now. She is so expressive, and I love hearing what I am doing to her._

_“Fuuuck Jackson. That feels so good!” I smile as I switch my attentions to her other breast. Always in the back of my mind is the reminder that I am her first. It both honors and humbles me, and I owe it to her to make it as good for her as possible. I wrap my arms around her again and find her lips with my mouth, as I scoop her up and move us further to the middle of the bed, laying her down flat this time._

_I start to work my way down her body with my hands and teeth and lips and tongue. We’re in no hurry, despite what my cock protests. The feel of her burying her hands in my tight curls and squirming under the attentions of my mouth is amazing. I lick down the valley of her breasts, stopping to suck just long enough to bring some color to her skin. She’s so pale compared to my own light coffee color that it doesn’t take much. Supporting myself on my elbows with my body situated between her jeans clad jeans, I lick under each breast while tweaking her nipples with my fingers. Worshipping her breasts like they deserve._

_Still using both my mouth and hands, I work my way down her body again, licking her belly button and sucking little marks into her skin everywhere I can. I take one hand and push it into her pants, and she starts panting so hard I’m afraid she may cum without me actually touching her._

_I get to my knees and unbutton her jeans, slowly. I rub my hands down the outside of her legs, firmly and sensually and kiss each of her feet before I pull her pants all the way off and toss them somewhere onto the floor to join the rest of our clothes. She already disposed of her own shoes and socks along the way. She is so responsive. She’s wearing just plain baby pink cotton bikini panties, and she is so wet that it is already dripping out of her panties and down her thighs. I can’t fucking wait to taste her, and I tell her so._

_She sits up on her elbows, “Then don’t wait” she says, and spreads her legs for me. Where in the hell did this vixen come from? I greedily yank down her panties and pause as for the first time I see April in all her naked glory. And glorious she is. The neatly trimmed red curls between her legs prove once and for all that she is indeed a natural red head._

_“Jackson?” she asks, and I hate the fear and hesitancy I hear in her voice this time. “You are so beautiful.” I tell her again, because it’s the truth. Then I start._

_I start nipping and sucking and kissing on her thighs. I slowly rub a finger up and through her slit and am rewarded with a high-pitched keening. Looking at her up thru my lashes, I see she is alternating between grabbing her own head and holding onto the blankets. She immediately starts to thrust and squirm, looking for the pressure that I’m not ready to give her yet. I take my thumb and slowly rub on her nub while taking a mouthful of her upper inner thigh into my mouth and sucking hard. Every time she takes a shower for the next few days, I want her to look down and remember that I was here. Then I spread her thighs wide with the flats of my palms and lick her from slit to clit, pulling her nub into my mouth and rolling my tongue around it. With one hand holding her open wide I slip one finger into her pussy.   The noises she is making is intoxicating, and she’s holding my head so hard it might have hurt if my head wasn’t between her legs. She’s not going to last much longer; her whole body is trembling underneath me. That’s good, because I’m not going to last much longer either. I’m unconsciously thrusting against the bed, but it’s not the feeling I’m looking for. I’m desperate to have her. I take my hand away from where I was holding her lips wide and instead put it underneath her to lift and spread her ass. She squeaks as it takes her off guard.  I remove my fingers from her hole so that I can run my tongue up and down her slit one more time, then as I suck her nub back into my mouth, I slip two fingers into her pussy, pressing into her g-spot while running circles over her asshole with my thumb. That does it, and with a high-pitched wail that ends in a guttural moan, she cums for me. I ease my pressure, but don’t take my mouth or hands away until her trembling subsides, and she starts pushing my head away instead of holding it to her due to her sensitivity._

_I let her watch me lick my own fingers clean and run my tongue around my lips to collect all her left-over juices, then stand up from the bed and finally remove my boxers. My cock springs free with such hope and relief I may weep. The gasp that leaves her mouth goes straight to my ego. She’s already reaching for me._

_And that’s when I realize I don’t have any condoms. I was here to take a test. Not have sex with my best friend. April see’s the panic on my face and asks me what’s wrong._

_“I don’t have any condoms” I say. The crestfallen look on her face would almost be comical if it were for any other reason.   But then this beautiful woman surprises me again tonight._

_“You’re clean right?”_

_“Of course. I always use a condom. And we have to get tested for work on a regular basis.”_

_“I’m on the pill. And obviously I’m clean.” She hesitates, then says “I want you Jackson.”_

_And that’s all I need to hear. I climb back onto the bed between her legs and kiss her with a fierceness I didn’t know I possessed. She gives it back as good as she gets. With our lips still locks together, I reach between us, rub her clit for a few moments, then grasp my cock and slowly enter her. Oh god. I’ve never been bare before. It is exquisite. I’m ruined for the rest of my life. April moans into my mouth but doesn’t protest so I go a bit further. When I hit the resistance, I hesitate, afraid to hurt her, but she locks her arms around me and wraps her legs around my waist and whispers “do it.” And then I’m buried to the hilt. I still again, waiting for her to give some signal that it’s ok to move again. Her body is pulled tight as a string, and it is taking all of my self-control to hold myself like this when my baser instincts are telling me to claim her until she can’t walk tomorrow. Or maybe for a week. I busy and distract us with our mouths and hands and a few moments later she starts to user her legs to rub herself on me. I take that as my cue and start to pull out and back in. I set a steady rhythm. Not too hard and not too fast, but with a rotation of my hips so that I know I’m hitting all of her good spots inside. She starts kissing on my collar bone and breathes out “More. More more more.” You’re wish is my command my lady. I sit up on my knees pulling her hips up with me. She locks her ankles around my back, and I pick up my pace at this new angle. It only takes a few thrusts before she’s once again saying “More.” And this time she sounds frantic. She reaches down to touch herself, and I shove her hands away and rub her clit myself. I feel my balls tighten and I’m a hairs breath away from cuming. I’m gearing myself up to think about anything but the way her body feels wrapped around mine when she grabs her own nipples and moans out my name. “Jackson, I’m cuming.” With one last burst of energy I let loose, fucking her and rubbing her clit with frantic energy. Skill is gone to be replaced with the primal need to leave myself spent and empty between her legs. I collapse on top of her, and after a few kisses roll to my side so we can both catch our breath. I sit up to grab the sheet. The cool air on our sweaty steaming skin is rapidly turning from welcome to chilly when she surpasses herself for the umpteenth time tonight._

_“Can I be on top?”_

_\------_

April –

Something’s wrong with Jackson. I see Arizona hovering on the outskirts of the trauma room, and her body language alone tells me it has something to do with my best friend. He’s coded, he’s died, he’s never waking up again. I stop my mind from running thru the myriad of terrible scenarios that I can’t possibly control and concentrate on the patient in front of me that I can. Close up gunshot wound to the hip, shattered pelvis. Scans, then the OR. We’ve stopped the obvious bleeding and have immobilized her hips. We took an x-ray in the trauma room, but she’s going to need a CAT scan before surgery. There are a lot of vessels in the pelvis, and she’ll need to be completely explored to make sure that there will be no permanent damage to her uterus and ovaries. We’re waiting for the police too. The paramedics got there before the police did.

“Hunt, you got her?” I ask as I point my chin towards Arizona. He takes one look at her and his eyes go soft and worried. “Go” he says, I’ve got this here. Somebody page Torres, tell her to meet me in the OR.”

I snap off my gloves and yank my trauma gown off so hard I rip it. By the time I get out there Karev has joined her and they are whispering furiously to each other, watching my approach out of the corner of their eyes.

“What happened?” I demand before I even each them. They look at each other, and Alex makes a grimace as if to say ‘you do it’ to Arizona.

“Let’s go somewhere more private.” Arizona says, and my heart rate kicks up yet another notch.

“I need to see Jackson. Walk and Talk.”

 

We’d been taking turns sitting with him, so he was rarely alone, but Catherine and I were with him the most. However, she had business she had to take care of in Boston today that she couldn’t get out of and won’t be back until tonight. If he took a turn and nobody was with him, she’d never forgive herself. I won’t forgive myself either. But after a week, when both Shepherds told me for the thousandth time that he would wake up when he was good and ready, I decided to start picking up my shifts again. I could tell that Matthew was losing his patience that I was spending all of my off time at the hospital, but until I knew one way or the other, I couldn’t leave him for long. I just couldn’t.

“Stop panicking, it’s good news, mostly. He’s awake and talking.” Relief washes thru me so fiercely that I feel my knee’s go weak. Alex must have noticed it because he reaches out to steady me. Then the panic sets back in.

“What do you mean mostly? What aren’t you telling me?”

Again, with the damn looks! Is this the way they treat patients and their parents? I know it’s not. They’re scared about how I’m going to react. “I’m not some scared family member. I’m a doctor. Just tell me.”

Alex takes over at this point.

“There seems to be an issue with his memory.”

“That’s not uncommon after a head injury. Short term amnesia before and after the event is almost expected. Is it deeper than that? Does he not remember anything?” My panic is back with a vengeance, and it’s brought friends this time, fear and sorrow. If Jackson has lost his memory, he won’t be able to operate anymore. If it’s bad enough his entire life could change, he’ll need round the clock assistance. And he won’t remember me.

“Shepherd has ordered an MRI and a CT. We’ll know more then. But it doesn’t seem to be an issue of him not remembering things. I mean, he doesn’t remember the attack, that’s true. But you’re right, that was to be expected. He never really regained true consciousness after he was brought in to the ER. He doesn’t have any memories of that time to forget. The problem is that he’s remembering things that didn’t happen.”

“What do you mean? Maybe they did happen, and we just don’t know about it. Just because we are all together almost 24/7 doesn’t mean that we necessarily know everything.”

But even I’ll admit I say that with very little conviction. We are together almost every moment of every day. What could he be talking about immediately out of an almost 4-week coma that we wouldn’t know about?

“April,” Arizona says, then hesitates. She pulls us to a stop off to the side when we get out of the elevator.” April, he thinks you’re married.”

“Oh, well that’s not so far-fetched. I am engaged after all.”

“No April. Jackson thinks _you_ are married to _him_. He’s asking for you”

 


	3. The Day of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson is coming to terms with his new reality.

Jackson

My mind is reeling as I lay in the MRI machine. The humming of the machine is a strange sort of comfort. The Shepherds are both on the other side of the machine, probably talking about me and my scrambled brain.

After the third “How are you doing in there Avery?” I finally replied with “I’m fine. Stop asking.” I heard She Shepherd mumble “well he sounds like himself” before they clicked off the speaker, and it’s been silence on that side ever since.

After most of the group scampered off to see to their patients, Bailey sent Warren in to help me out. Tubes that were no longer needed were removed and I shuffled, leaning heavily on Warren for support, to the bathroom and get a look at myself. The bandage on my head was a small one, and after removing it, really unnecessary. Shepherd was right that the scar wouldn’t be all that visible. I’m a good-looking guy; tall and muscled with latte colored skin and sea blue eyes. Some day’s it’s a hassle, but I’d like to keep it this way all the same. My hair has grown out some, and my beard too, though my beard is still neatly trimmed. I wonder who was doing that. My mother probably. Most of the bruising has gone down substantially. But they were right about it being bad. I start to wonder about what it looked like fresh, but then push that thought out of my mind. I don’t want to think about that right now. The main thing are the scars from the kidney removal. They’re healing nicely. I do want to know who did the surgery. I’m sure April wasn’t allowed to. Webber either probably. So that leaves Meredith or Bailey. Maybe Hunt. They’d stopped the dialysis a few days ago, but there is a real risk that I will need it again in my lifetime. I push that thought away too. I run my arms down my chest and wince at the sudden soreness of my ribs. It will still be a few weeks until those heal completely.

I’m as weak as a baby kitten, and just the few minutes standing in front of the mirror has depleted me. I use the toilet, then open the door and let Warren lead me back to the bed.

Soon both Shepherds were back.

Apparently, I know the correct year, but not the correct month. It’s May, not August. My physical strength is weak, but there. And oh, April and I aren’t married. Just a small little detail. I ‘m not ashamed to admit I’m struggling with this. I’m not sure what to believe. They wouldn’t tell me that if it wasn’t true. These people are my friends, my family. But I feel bereft. Naked and empty. Confused. I need to see her. They promised me she’d be waiting after my scans. But I don’t think I’ll breathe normally again until I talk to her, no matter what they say. I remember our wedding. I remember holding Harriett for the first time. Feeling her move in April’s belly. I remember how she feels in my arms, under me and over me. How I feel when I lose myself inside her. And they are telling me that’s just a fantasy, a delusion. A product of my imagination.

“All done” comes over the speakers to interrupt my ruminations and the machine starts to spit me out.

The Shepherds’ both come in to help me back into the wheel chair. They tried to keep me in the bed and wheel me in on the stretcher, but I told them that wasn’t necessary. Ok, well I told them to go to hell, but I think they got the point. I need to start getting my strength back. I look at them expectantly and Derek tells me that the scans look clear on the computer. My delusions, if that’s what they are, aren’t caused from some sort of brain bleed.

It’s not unheard of for coma patients to have dreams when they are out. Mer herself had an outrageous fantasy when she was ‘dead’ from the drowning, so I heard. But when she came too, she didn’t think they were real.

\--

Both Shepherds start talking as they wheel me back to my room. I hear things like keep you for observation, patience, psychiatrist, but I’m not paying much attention. My anxiety level is rising again.

As we round the corner to my room, I see her. She’s got a tablet in her hands, probably looking over my chart. I see the differences right away. She’s still beautiful. Red hair down and wavy, the same blue scrubs and white coat. But her hair is shorter than I last remember, and this April is softer somehow. Her edges haven’t been sharpened by years of loss and life. And she’s wearing a ring on her finger that I didn’t put there. And she has the definite look of an April about to spiral. It brings a small smile to my face.

When she puts the tablet down and turns towards us, it’s like the sun has come out. Her smile is radiant. And then she promptly bursts into tears. Told ya, spiraling. I try to tell myself that’s the response of an overly emotional best friend, and not that of a woman in love with her husband.

“Jackson, I was so scared.” She’s quickly getting herself under control, wiping her tears away.

Derek helps me climb back into the bed. Despite my best protests, the monitors are hooked back up again, and April takes the chair and pulls it right up to the bed. Both Shepherds loiter in the room and I’m about ready to tell them to take a hike but April beats me to it.

“We’ll be ok guys. I’ll stay with him a while.” After a hand squeeze from Shepherdess and a “Page me if you need me” from Derek, we were alone.

 

\---

 

Well this is awkward. I feel like I just walked in on Webber and my mom again. But now I wonder, is there a Webber and my mom? That’s when we became us. Maybe neither happened.

“Jackson.” Just the way she says my name pulls me towards her. “I was so scared. They kept saying just to give you time, that you would wake up when your body was ready for it. But I underestimated how stubborn you could be. When Matthew called me to tell me that they had you on the rig I”

“Stop.” I interrupt her, not caring if I’m being rude. “I don’t want to talk about Matthew.”

“Ok.” She says and reaches for my hand with both of hers.

“They tell me” She starts hesitantly, speaking softly and unsure, “that you’re having some memory issues.” April has always been a toucher, in and out of my apparent dream. She’s got both of her hands wrapped around my one and is using her thumb to rub soft circles over my skin. It’s distracting, to say the least, but I certainly can’t tell her to stop either.

“Ummm, yea. I had a pretty detailed dream. I guess.” I stop. I don’t know what’s real or not real at this point. What do I say? April takes over.

“Catherine will be back tonight. I’ve already spoken with her. She is so relieved that you are awake, and so mad that you had to do it the one day that she’s not here.” She smiles at me to help convey the drama that I’m sure my mother unleashed into her phone. “Tomorrow you get a full work up. Labs, scans, the works. Hunt performed the kidney removal, but almost everyone was either in the OR or in the gallery. I was on shift when they brought you in. You’ve got to stop almost dying on me. I don’t think I can take the stress. I feel like I’ve aged a year for every day you’ve been under.” Ditto I feel like telling her, but I don’t know if what happened to her is real. How far back does the fantasy go?

April reaches up and strokes my face. Without thinking about it I lean into her hand and soak her in. “I think I did a pretty good job keeping your beard trimmed though. Don’t you think?” Of course, April was the one to trim by beard. That doesn’t even surprise me. And where if it were my mom, I would have been irritated about her being pushy, even when I’m unconscious, with April it just seems normal.

“I went to your apartment and got some clothes for you and your toiletries. When you took your time waking up, I put them in my locker. I’ll go get them in a little bit. Since they took the catheter out you can probably put on some sweat pants.” She always rambles when she gets nervous.

“Yea let’s not talk about catheters.”

We sit in silence for a while. The awkwardness is long gone, and I find myself falling asleep. When I feel her getting up to leave, I squeeze her hand and open my eyes again.

“It’s 2018.” I say firmly, simply.

“It is.”

“Give me the highlights. Did we get into a fight in the bar at our Surgical Boards?”

If that caught her off guard, she hid it well. “We did, yes. The next morning you walked in on your mom and Webber” her giggling brings a half smile half grimace to my face “so that was fun! They’ve been married for about 2 years now. She’s still sharing too much information for your tastes.”

Ok. She’s still rubbing my hand and wrist, and I’m thankful for it. It’s probably the only thing keeping me calm. I nod to say that’s just as I remember it.

“Did anything else happen there? Anything significant?”

“Well I failed my boards.”

“I remember.”

“Kinda wish you would have forgotten that actually.”

“Why did you fail? Any falling outs with Jesus perhaps?”

Now that does give me a bemused look.

“Nope, pure and simple panic attack. After the boards, there was the plane crash. Do you remember that?”

Damn. Realistically I knew that had to have happened. If Sloan had still been alive, he would have been standing in Derek’s place this afternoon telling me how sexy I looked after he got done with me. But it still causes me a stab of sadness to hear it aloud.

“Yes. Sloan and Lexie died. Arizona lost her leg. Derek loss the use of his hand for almost a year and She Shepherd came up to help with his service, and then never left again.”

The more I talk, the more relieved her face becomes.

“Jackson, tell me what _you_ remember.”

I remember what it feels like when you look at me from across the room. I remember what you sound like when you moan out my name. I remember what it felt like when we lost everything, almost including each other.

My heart rate is ticking up again, and she makes soothing noises and starts rubbing one hand up and down my arm.

“Can we, can we not do this right now? I’m tired.” Chicken shit.

“Of course! Of course, you are. I shouldn’t have stayed so long. I’ll let you get some sleep.” Then she starts to stand up and pull away from me

“NO!” I yell out louder than I mean to. I scared her, but it scared me to think of her leaving. “Just, please just stay with me for a little bit longer.”

April reaches over my lap, (don’t think dirty thoughts Avery), to grab the remote control and dims the lights in the room. Then she pulls the chair up so that it touches the bed and grabs my hand again.

“I’ll stay for as long as you need me to.” And then she sings me Harriet’s lullaby.


	4. Same Day, Aprils POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April

April

I sit there long after he’s asleep. It didn’t take very long. My hands never lose their rhythm on his arm. Several times people walk by his room to check in on him, but I just put my finger to my lips to keep them quiet then wave them off.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. Jackson was intense. He always projects a thin layer of intensity, it’s in his DNA. But this was different. He was both forceful and soft in ways that I wasn’t expecting. Normally he hugs me to humor me, or like a little sister. But today was different. His agitation always rose when I tried to stop touching him. And thru it all, he didn’t tell me what everybody else has, which is that he thought we were married. And when I say everybody, I mean everybody. This spread thru the hospital at a ridiculous pace, even for this place. I have to turn my phone to silent from all the messages I’ve been getting. When I see that my shift has been over for a while now, I carefully extract my hands from Jacksons, and without giving it much thought lean in to kiss his forehead. I freeze when he mumbles something in his sleep, but he doesn’t stir more than that, so I head out of his room.

I start heading to the attending’s lounge and pull out my cellphone as I go. 15 messages. Vultures. He’s only been awake a few hours. Ignoring all of the gossip hunters, I send a quick message to Matthew to let him know that I’m not going to be able to see him tonight. I don’t tell him that Jackson has woken up. I’m sure he’ll hear it from somebody else since I think he has a shift tomorrow morning if he hasn’t already, but I’ll deal with that when I have to.   I need some more time to just be with Jackson and make sure he’s going to be ok before Matthew starts back on the hinting that I need to get back to my regular routine. And wedding planning.

He and Jackson have never been exactly friends. There haven’t been any conflicts between them, but Jackson went way into overprotective best friend mode when we started dating and it never really got any better. Despite the fact that Jackson knows Matthew is waiting for marriage too, I can’t get over the feeling that Jackson thinks Matthew is always on the verge of stealing me away and doing terrible things to me. And Matthew has always been uncomfortable with how close Jackson and I are, no matter how many times I tell him that Jackson thinks of me as his best friend, an annoying little sister. Boys. I roll my eyes even though there is no one here to see me.

When I push open the door to the attending’s lounge however, that’s a whole other story. I think the entire group is sitting there waiting for me. Questions start coming at me from too many directions to actually understand anything anyone is saying.

“Whoa whoa whoa” I say holding up my hands to stop the barrage of words in my direction.

“First, yes he is awake. Well no now he’s sleeping, but it’s a sleep from exhaustion and not from a coma. Yes, he does seem to have some slight memory and personality changes, but we all know those will probably go away with time. Once he confirmed that Catherine and Richard were still married that seemed to put him at ease some.”

Richard speaks up at this point. “Catherine got on a plane an hour ago. She should be here in 3 hours or so. She’s going to take a taxi from the airport.”

“Good. He’ll be happy to know that. Probably. I’m going to stay with him tonight, at least until Catherine gets here. I just came into the lounge to get his stuff so that when he’s ready, he can shower and change. I told him since the catheter was out, he could switch into regular clothes.”

“That’s fine” says Bailey, even though I wasn’t asking her permission.

“So?” Asks Alex?

“So, What?” I reply, even though I know what he’s asking.

“So, what did he say about being married to you? He was pretty upset when we told him you guys weren’t together. “

“Upset is an understatement.” Says Shepherd. “I thought we were going to have to sedate him for a minute there.”

That gives me pause. But I can’t think about that right now. I’ve got to get back to Jackson. I feel like him coming to again without me would be a bad thing.

“He didn’t say anything about it, and neither did I. He’s fine guys. He’s going to be fine. I’ve got to get back.” And I walk to my locker, take out Jackson’s bag of stuff and turn and leave the room. I stop though and turn around again.

“Hey guys, maybe we don’t mention anything about this to anyone out of this room ok? Not the nurses, not the paramedics, nobody but us. You guys already know, but let’s try to keep the chatter to a minimum. He’s not going to appreciate it if people take what he said out of context. The nods and sounds of “Of course and no problems” say it all. They won’t mention it to Matthew if I won’t. And I have no intention to at all. Jackson probably won’t even remember thinking it when he wakes up tomorrow anyways. “As a matter of fact, as soon as you leave this room, start trying to shut it down. Everybody heard wrong. Right?” “Right” they reply unanimously. It stays pretty silent until the door starts to close behind me, and then the gossip mill starts to grind again.


	5. Day 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reality Bites

Jackson

 

I woke up once in the middle of the night to find April asleep in the chair next to me.  She’s still holding my hand and is half leaning on the mattress, head resting on my leg.  And this is somehow supposed to convince me that we’re not married?  I reach my other hand as far as it will go, hurting my chest slightly to do so, and gently rub her head.

“She’s barely left your side.” I look around and my mother is there, quietly watching us from the other side of the room.  Her voice is low and her movements quiet as she gets up and walks over to envelope me in a hug.

“Hi mom.”  She’s smiling a relieved smile at me as she pets my face.

“I understand that you like to make a point son, but don’t you think you took things a little too far this time Jackson? 3 weeks in a coma? Really son, that wasn’t necessary.”

I recognize it for what it is.  Her way of dealing with the fear of the last couple of weeks.

“Sorry mom.  Next time I’ll make sure to do things on your schedule.”

“There had better not be a next time” she says a little sharply.

April starts to stir, but I reach over and run my fingers thru her hair again, and she settles back to sleep.  She always loves to have her hair rubbed.  Does she?  I have a headache.

My mom is silent, watching our interactions without question or comment.  I’m thankful for it.  I don’t want to talk about it, whatever it actually is.

“Can I get some water mom?”

“Of course, sweetheart” she says as she reaches for the pitcher on the bed side table.  My stomach is rumbling, and I wonder how long I’ll have to wait until I can talk someone into bringing me real food.  And again, after just a few minutes awake, I feel worn out and exhausted.  I know we tell patients that it can take weeks, sometimes months after an experience like this to regain their strength but being on the other side of it gives me a whole new perspective. I feel like a retroactive asshole for every patient I’ve ever told to have patience.

With a mothers’ intuition, she settles the blanket on me as well as she can with April asleep on a section of it and leans in to kiss my forehead.  “I’ll be back first thing in the morning sweetheart.  Do you need me to bring anything?”

“My cell phone would be nice.”  The smile she gives me in return is mysterious and she turns and reaches onto the counter behind her to hand me my phone.

“April already took care of that.   She’s kept it charged so it was ready when you were.  She knows you well.  There’s a gym bag in the bathroom with all of your stuff in it.  I know how bad you must want to shower. Richard and Bailey have been handling any issues that came up in regard to the hospital board so you can ignore any foundation emails you see that have built up in there.  Ben has been helping to cover your service, and he’s done a great job.  If you want, I’ll let him know that you’re ready to start going over patient charts that you’ve missed.” I nod at her once, too overwhelmed to say anything.

“I kept housekeeping going at your apartment to make sure it doesn’t get too dusty and April and I have taken turns to pop in every few days to collect your mail and make sure that everything is ok there. We put a lump of money on all of your utilities and such so that we wouldn't have to worry about it while you were recovering.”

The wave of gratitude that rolls over me almost brings tears to my eyes.  I have to clear my throat before I can answer, unclogging the fist of emotion that has gathered there.

“Thanks mom.  I love you.”

She kisses me one more time, runs her own hand over Aprils head, and turns to leave me in Aprils care.

 

When I wake up for the final time the next morning, April is gone, the nurses are there to record my vitals and steal my blood, and Callie is stretched out in the seat next to me. 

She’s one of the few people that I didn’t see yesterday.  It’s kind of surprises me because we’ve become pretty close since Mark died, but I was too overwhelmed yesterday to think over it too much.  Maybe that connection was part of, whatever it was, but I feel instinctively that is wasn’t.

“So, ready to admit you’re in love with April?”  Okay not part of the dream then.

“Ummmmm.” Did I lose part of my vocabulary with the kidney?  That seems to be my main sound since I came out of the coma.

“Don’t worry pretty boy, your secret is still safe with me.  Everybody just thinks it was delusional ramblings from your scrambled noggin.”  I can’t even imagine what my face must look like right now.  Luckily, she takes pity on me.

“Ready to get out of that hospital gown?”

“God yes please.  Is Warren or somebody coming?”

“He got pulled into a case this morning.  But I can help.  I mean you’re pretty and everything Avery, but penis isn’t really my thing these days.”

That pulls a laugh out of me and I happily agree to let her help me shuffle to the bathroom.  She unhooks the IV and removes the chest pads for the monitors.  They’ll all have to go back on, but at least I can wear my own clothes with them.  Once I have the hospital clothes off and am standing under the shower stream, Callie comes into the bathroom and sits on the toilet.

“Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure Avery, ask away.”

“Can you…Will you not tell anybody?”

“Anybody asks what we talked about this morning, I’ll remind them of those pesky HIPPA Laws.  Even though rarely does that stop anybody around this place.”

That earns another chuckle from me.  Truer words were never spoken.  I find it easier to talk about this behind the shower curtain where I can’t see her face and her reaction to my lapses.

“Are you and Arizona still married?”

“Nope!  It got rough there for a while, but we’re working it out.  We’re a lot like Yang and Hunt were a few years ago. Divorced and doing it like bunnies.”  Not all that different from my dream then.

“And Derek, well he’s obviously not dead.”  That gets a surprised sound out of her.

“Nice pick up Avery.  No.  Actually, nobody’s died since the plane crash.  That must be some sort of record for Grey Sloan Mercy Death.  You tried to die a few times after they brought you in, but we can be just as stubborn as you are.”  I hear the pride tinged in her voice. 

“And does he still work for the white house?”

 “Oh yea.  He splits his time between here and DC.  He’s only been to DC for a day or so since your accident though.  Pissed Amelia off bad, they got into a huge fight about him still not trusting her skills.  But then he told her that you were his friend and he wouldn’t risk not being here if something happened.  She took pity on him after that. It was a similar enough to the situation with what happened to Mark that it got to him a little bit I think.”

That's a sobering thought, and I think I owe him an additional thank you.

“And I’m not” I hesitate, but it doesn’t matter.  She wasn’t in the room, but she’s heard.  And she knows.

“Married to April?  Afraid not.  She’s been with He Who Shall Not Be Named for a few years now, engaged for close to 1.  Kind of dragging her feet if you ask me, but we don’t talk about that. It’s like fight club.  The first rule about fight club is that we don’t talk about fight club. “

“And that puts an end to this conversation.  Hand me a towel, would you?”

She averts her gaze, but not before getting a quick examination in that I pretend I didn’t notice.  I manage to get into my boxer briefs without falling on my face, but she helps me into the shirt and pants April brought me.

After all the tubes and connectors are back up and the now soothing sound of my heartbeat is ticking in the background and a nice breakfast of jello, the interns wander in to get the day started.

As Callie is leaving to get to her first surgery, she hands me a lifeline I didn't know I needed.

"I may not be your person, but I will happily be your secret keeper.  When you're ready to talk, I'm here to listen."

And with that, she's gone. 

\--

All my tests have come back clear.  I’m going to have to get regular blood tests to check on my kidney function, but I own a hospital, so I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.

I spend the days alternating between napping, socializing and updating charts.  I asked to go over any work for the foundation on day 2 of full wake up but was categorically denied.   

On the third day post wake up, it happens.  I wake up, and it’s as if I’m seeing double.  It’s kinda like that stupid Hunger Games movie April made me watch with her.  All of my dream memories have this shiny quality to them now.

I know that April and What’s His Name have been dating for almost 3 years instead of him proposing after only 6 months.  But I can still vividly recall the incredibly lame flash dance proposal in the ambulance bay too.

I remember that during the Board Certifications we did kiss, but then she covered her mouth and laughed like a drunk hyena before heading to bed alone.  I did walk into the men’s restroom to find April freaking out.  But calming her down calmed me down too.  Not me locking the door and making love to her in the bathroom stall.  I like that version of things better, I think.  But the truth is that in every version of reality she helps center me.

I spend another boring miserable 3 days in the hospital until they say I can finally go home.  I think they would have kept me longer, but the fact that our entire community is doctors has some benefits.  And April and Callie have promised to check in with me every day. 

Almost 4 weeks to the day I’m being wheeled into the ER, only this time to sit and wait until April’s shift is over so that she can drive me home.  I had to firmly refuse the offer from Richard and my mother to bring me home.  I’m afraid that if she entered my apartment, I’d never be able to get rid of her. 

I get a happy “Jackson!” when she see’s me, and it flashes me to another time, if not a different place.

 

_I have some time between consults, so I head down to check out April in the Pit.  We’re still avoiding each other at work, and I hate the fact that I can’t reach out and touch her._

_“You need a consult Dr. Kepner.” I tell her, I don’t ask her.  She gives a quick scan of the area to see who we may be around then readily agrees._

_“Yes Dr. Avery.  I am in desperate need of your services.”  I follow her into an empty patient room then push her up against the door as soon as it’s closed.   Both of her arms wrap around my neck and I bury my hands in her hair.  We kiss so intense and deep that I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.  I’m addicted to her mouth.  I move my mouth down her throat, pulling the most exquisite little noises from it when someone bangs on the door trying to enter, and we jump apart as if we’ve been burned._

“Are you alright Jackson?” April has reached where I’m sitting behind the desk.  I was too busy with my fantasy that I didn’t see her close the gap between us.

“Yea, I’m good.”

“Let me go grab my purse and then we can get you home.”

I watch her walk away and come to the inescapable truth. In every reality that exists, I am in love with April Kepner.


	6. Going Stircrazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson and April both try to navigate their new dynamic after he awakes from the coma.

Jackson

 

Bored.  I am so bored.  It’s like being in solitary confinement.  The internet can only do so much for you when you’re used to working 12-hour days 5-6 days a week.  I’ve been home a week now, and they won’t clear me for surgery for at least 1 more.  I can’t drive, so I’ve taken to having long walks around the neighborhood.  The first day I barely made it to the end of the block before I had to turn back but now, I can make it all the way around the block.  I tried to start my regular work out but that was quickly and painful put to the side for now.

On top of having to wait for the all clear from Hunt to return to work since he performed the kidney removal, I have to get the sign off from a Neurological psychologist next Monday.  I’m not a big follower of the psychiatric world, but I guess that’s a doctor who specializes on the affects disease or damage has on an emotional state.  Basically, they want to make sure I’m not going to spaz out in the middle of the hospital.  Fabulous.  Who wants to bet that all she wants to talk about is my supposed marriage to my best friend?  Both April and my mother offered to take me, and I assured them that I can take a taxi just fine.  But then Callie messaged me to tell me she’d pick me up at noon and I didn’t fight it.

Being back home in my own apartment did unexpectently help with the dream flashes though.  April and I were never together in this apartment.  I moved into this one after we’d gotten married.  Or never got married.  Or anyways, this apartment was never in my coma dream.  That doesn’t stop me from dreaming about her at night though.

Or the flashes of intimacy that keep trying to escape whenever she is near.  My first night home she came over after her shift to bring me groceries and take out for dinner.  I had my arm wrapped around her waist and was already bending to kiss her before I caught myself.  Instead it turned into a really awkward hug.   

Ok. I can’t take this anymore. I order an Uber on my phone and am walking into the hospital twenty minutes later.  Just because I can’t operate doesn’t mean I can’t get some work done.  It’s a long walk up to the surgery floor.  I’m stopped every few steps by an employee to tell me how happy they are that I am recovering well or to ask me some question about policy or a patient that I would have no way of answering.  I mean I’ve been kinda preoccupied the last few weeks.  So, what gives them the idea that I would have the answer? I shake my head and seriously reconsider whether I have lasting brain damage if I’m here looking for paperwork to do.  Then I think about my permanent ass-print deepening into my couch as the days tick by and soldier on up to the ward.  I’m just about to my office when Webber catches sight of me.

“Jackson son, what are you doing here?”

“I had to get out of that apartment, so I thought I’d come in and get a handle on my paperwork.”

“There’s no need for that, we have it all handled.”

I give him a look that I hope conveys both my skepticism and my epic desire to have something, anything to do, and he chuckles at me.

“I’ve been in your position before but let me ask you. Does your mother know you’re here?”

“No.  I’m a grown ass man.  I don’t need to report in to her.” The look he gives me is pointed. “Is she here?”

“She is, we just finished a surgery on a bladder reconstruction.  I’d scram fast before she sees that you’re here if you know what’s good for you.” 

“Good idea.”

Too late.  Here she comes around the corner and her easy relaxed face becomes stern before it clears and becomes jovial and she smiles.  I’m instantly on guard.

“Jackson Honey!  I didn’t know you were coming in today!  Why didn’t you call first?  I could have re-arranged my schedule and picked you up.  I hope you didn’t drive here, son.”

I kiss her on both cheeks when she reaches me.

“Hello mother. Of course, I didn’t drive here myself. I haven’t been cleared yet. I wouldn’t dare risk the wrath of Bailey.  I ordered a car to drive me. There was no need to bother you.”

“You’re no bother, you’re my son!  Now, have you seen April yet?”

No, I haven’t.  I made a point to come in thru the front door and avoid the ER completely.  I think I need a chance to get a better grip on myself before I start seeing her in such a familiar environment again. 

“I’m sure she’s busy mother.  Everyone is busy.  They put their lives on hold long enough when I was in the hospital.  I just came in to try to get caught up on some paperwork.  And I’m going to go do that now.”  I lean in to kiss her cheek one more time then try to extract myself from her clutches and head to the offices.

“Okay honey, but make sure you check in before you leave.”

That was easier than I expected and I’m immediately suspicious.  I’m sure she’ll butt into my day in some other way.

I get my computer turned on and it’s worse than I expected.  479 emails.  I get myself a cup of coffee and settle in for the afternoon.

 

April

 

I get a text from Catherine a little after noon telling me Jackson is in the hospital.  I immediately start to panic, but just as I’m getting ready to go search for them, I get a follow up text telling me that he’s in his office trying to catch up on paperwork.  Really Jackson?  You just came back to life and you’re already trying to do paperwork?  Well, not really back to life, but my point still stands. 

Looking for Hunt to tell him that I need to take a break I hear his strong voice come up behind me.

“April, incoming trauma.  MVC with multiple injuries.  3 minutes out, let’s go.”

 

I grab a resident and an intern and head outside to wait.

“Jackson’s here.  His mothers just messaged me to tell me he was in his office.”

“How’s he doing?  I’m supposed to clear him for surgery end of next week, but I haven’t talked to him since he was discharged.”

“Good” I say.” Real good.”

And he is, physically.  But something has changed, and I can’t put my finger on what, and he won’t talk to me about it.  We used to talk about everything.  Or almost everything.  But I’ve initiated almost every instance of contact between us since that first day he left the hospital.

Since when he almost kissed me.  He played it off and didn’t say anything about it, so I followed his lead and pretended it didn’t happen either.  But it did.  And it’s been replaying in my mind ever since.  It’s proof.  He did dream about us being together, in a relationship, married.  Even if he doesn’t want to talk about it, and I can understand why he wouldn’t I guess, it happened.

The ambulance comes into the unloading area, and my thoughts of Jackson get pushed to the back for the more immediate need in front of me.

 

A few hours later I’m standing in the OR, deciding if this spleen is salvageable or if it’s got to go when I feel his eyes on me.  I look up and sure enough, Jackson is sitting in the gallery legs crossed at the knees, hands in his jacket pockets.  He’s alone up there, but whether its’ because he scared everybody else off or because this is a boring case I don’t know.  I didn’t look up to check on the audience before I felt him watching me.  One of these days I’m going to have to ask Alex and Mer if they can feel when each other walks into a room or not.

I point up at him and nod my head, and he takes the hint and walks over to the speaker.

“I’m probably going to be another hour or two at least, but if you want to wait for me, I’m off after this.  We can get some dinner?”

There’s a hesitation when he answers, and for a minute I’m afraid he’s going to tell me no.

“Sure.  Yea I have more paperwork to do anyways.  I just needed to get away from the computer screen for a little bit.” I smile, even though he probably can’t tell it with my mask back on and turn my attention back to my patient.  Salvageable, I think.

“4-0 vicryl please.” I say, hand out to receive it.

I can feel him up there for the rest of the surgery.  I tell myself it’s the first surgery he’s been around in over a month.  He’s probably craving to cut the way normal people crave a candy bar.  That’s what it is.  It has nothing to do with me.

But maybe it’s me that’s changed. If his coma changed him, it most certainly changed me.  I thought I’d lost him.  That can have a profound effect on a person.  Right? But knowing he was in the gallery never used to give me butterflies in my gut.  There’s a tension pulling me tight that has nothing to do with the patient laying on the table in front of me.  I look up one last time as I’m getting ready to have my resident close for me, and the look on his face makes my heart skip a beat.  Get a grip Kepner! Get a grip.

 

He meets me in the scrub room as I’m finishing scrubbing out.

“Hey Jackson, how are you feeling?”

“My head hurts from staring at the screen for so long.  I had almost 500 emails when I came in.  I didn’t put the sort of dent into them that I wanted to.  I’ll have to come back next week a few times to get caught up before I’m back on the surgery schedule.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard Jackson!  You’ve been thru a lot.  Your body and mind both need time to recover.”

“And now you sound like my mother.”

“Catherine is an amazing woman.  I take that as high praise indeed.”

He is so cute when he predictably rolls his eyes at me.

“Anyways dinner?  Want to go to Joes?”

“How about we get take out instead.  I’m really not up for a crowd tonight.”

“Chinese sound good?  We can download a movie!”

“No, we can watch the basketball game.  As the person with the most recent brush with death I get to choose the entertainment.”

“Wow Jackson really?  Already using the coma as leverage.  That’s low.”

We’ve made it to the lounge for me to grab my stuff.  I start the change out of my scrubs but think better of it and move into the bathroom.

“A guys gotta do what a guy’s gotta do April.”  He says thru the door.  The smile on his face when I come out is a breath of fresh air. 

Pretty soon we’re sitting side by side on his couch eating out of a multitude of Chinese food containers, trading back and forth as we watch the game.  And I try desperately to ignore that tightness still in my chest, pulling me towards him.


	7. Dr. Bennett

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson meets with the Dr.

Jackson

 

Callie rings my doorbell at 11:45 sharp on Monday morning.  I’m hoping we can use our collective doctor super powers to get the return to duty form signed without spending much time there. 

“Looking good Avery.” She says and she follows her purse down onto my couch.

“Thanks, I think.” I run my hand self consciously over my hair and beard.  I finally made it to the barber this weekend.  Now I look more urban black man on the rise and less mountain man who doesn’t own a mirror.  I used interrogation from the guys that work there as practice for my appointment today.  Explaining why I hadn’t been in in almost 6 weeks when I normally have a standing weekly appointment without giving any hint to fake lives and unrequited love for my best friend. 

“I like the beard” she says. “It suits you.”

I’ve got my jacket on and my phone, but I can’t find my keys.  “Yea, April always liked it too.”  I answer distractedly.  Oops.  That was a fail.  I realized it the minute I opened my mouth, but I was too slow in stopping the words.

“Tell me more about how April likes the beard.  Does she like the way it scratches against her skin? I always liked the way a mans beard felt against my sensitive areas.” She’s smirking like she thinks she’s the funniest thing she knows.  Time to change the subject.

“So, how’s Arizona doing?  You guys do anything fun this weekend?”

I feel bad for pulling out the big guns, but I needed to change to subject.

“No.  Arizona went out this weekend.  Wing manned by Webber apparently.”  I already knew that, but no need to rub salt in the wound.  Webber spends a lot of time with Robbins when my mom is in Boston.  And lately he’s been checking in with me a couple times a day. Just a text to let me know something he supposedly thinks I’ll think is interesting.  It’s got to be my moms doing.  She avoids the appearance of being in my face all the time while still get’s the knowledge of me checking in several times a day.

“What are you doing Jackson?  We’ve got to go.”

“I can’t find my keys.  Make yourself useful and help me look, would you?”

She angles to the side and starts shoving her hands into the cracks of the couch cushions but says “You really should get a dish or a hook to put them on that way you don’t have this issue.”

I’m immediately transported back to a similar conversation with a redhead in an elevator.

 

_“We’ll only be like 15 minutes late.” I say as we hustle down the hallway, tucking away cell phones and notebooks in hastily donned lab coats._

_“Oh well we wouldn’t be late at all if you just put the key on the hook.  I put it by the door so you would always know where it is.”_

_She so beautiful when she’s lecturing me.  I grab her around the waist and pull her into my arms._

_“Oh, I know the hook. I play with the hook. I’m not a hook guy.” Maybe if I kiss her, she’ll shut up._

_“Oh, really I’m not a (kiss) can’t (kiss) find my keys type of girl” Kiss._

_“Mm-Hmm.” Kiss “That’s what, I’m saying, though right? You do you and I’ll do me” I flip her around so that her back is pressed up against my front and show her just how happy I’d be to do her if she wanted._

_“Okay. Well your You makes ME late for OUR work.”_

_“Well” I angle her head backwards and she lets loose those little moans I love into my mouth. I could kiss her forever. Bing!  The elevator opens and she’s gone._

“Jackson. JACKSON!” Callie’s looking at me with a look of combined worry and sympathy.  She must have been saying my name for a while.

“Another memory?”

“They’re not memories Cal, they never really happened.”

“Still, do you want to tell me about it?”

“No, not really.”

“Well then you’d better get your head in the game.  It’s not the same without you at work.  Warren does a great job, but you are Sloan incarnate.  Not to mention Kepner’s exuberance is getting out of control.  She needs you there to calm her down.  She’s getting more uppity by the day. “

I give up looking for my keys. “Do you still have my spare?”

Callie reaches into her purse and pulls out this overlarge keyring with a multitude of different colored keys on them.  “A different colored key for everybody’s different places.  If any of us ever get mugged we’re going to ALL have to change our locks. Mer’s spare ring is worse than mine.”

And with that amusing thought, we lock the door and head to the doctor.

\--

The Neurologist we’re going to (I prefer not to think about the psychiatrist part) is across town.  It’s not a very common specialty at the moment and Amelia recommended her.  She’s good in her field, but not associated with Grey Sloan.  I’ll be able to get my signature from her but not have to worry about people walking into her office multiple times a day trying to talk about me.

The ride over is peaceful, just small talk about what’s going on at the hospital and about Sophia.  I resolutely don’t think about my own kid who isn’t.  Even though it’s been weeks now, the memories aren’t fading, and neither are the emotions associated with them.

Which is why I’m seeing the doctor today, I guess.

The building is beautiful, all modern glass and sleek lines.  But when we get into her offices, I’m surprised by the homey feel of it.  It’s all soft blue’s and creamy whites.  The chairs are softer than those that we offer at the hospital and I hear Callie say a quiet “Nice” as she settles into a chair and grabs a People magazine off of the table. 

“Jackson Avery to see Dr. Bennett please.” I check in with the receptionist. After a quick copy of my id and insurance card, I take a seat next to Callie.

 

To my surprise, and to my relief, I’m escorted into her office area instead of a patient room when they call me back.  I’m only alone in her room for a minute until she comes in with a “Jackson, so good to see you.”  She greets me like she’s an old friend instead of the person who currently holds my surgical career in her hands, and I take that as a good sign.  She’s a good-looking woman, probably in her mid-50’s, with her salt and pepper hair pulled into a bun and wearing a pair of slacks with a simple dress shirt. Simple makeup and no lab coat or expensive jewelry to mark her status as an elite among the elite in her profession.

“Dr. Bennett, so good to see you.” I stand up to shake her hand, and when she sits down, she sits on the couch instead of behind her desk, offering me the seat on the other end.

“Please, call me Liz.”

“Liz, as in Elizabeth.  As in Elizabeth Bennett.”

She laughs and smiles, it’s obvious a question that she is used to. “Yes, to say my mother was a fan of Jane Austen would be an understatement.  I think she married my father for his last name alone.  When she found out she was having a girl, there was no other choice.  Or so I’ve been told.  Every chance she gets.  Still it, could be worse.”

I think of our Harriett the Spy and can’t stop the genuine smile that reaches my eyes.

“I’ve read your file and seen your scans of course.  I’ve also spoken to both the Shepherds over at Grey Sloan.  They make quite the duo, don’t they?  The Shepherd Siblings of Neurosurgery.”

“Are they really called that?”

“Oh yes.  I’ve also heard of the Royal Family of Neuro, but let’s keep that between us shall we.  Don’t need it going to their heads.”

I immediately see why Amelia likes her.  I wonder if Amelia has met with her herself, in a professional compacity, but it’s not my place to ask.

“I’ve ALSO gotten calls from a Dr. Catherine Avery, a Dr Miranda Bailey, several emails from a Dr. April Kepner asking about my qualifications and ways your own hospital can facilitate your recovery and a very pleasurable phone call from a Dr. Thomas Fineus from the Army Medical Corps on behalf of a Major Dr. Owen Hunt about how treatments of veterans suffering brain trauma after combat could possibly help in your situation.”  I am at a loss for words.  My mom was to be expected.  She can never keep her nose out of my business.  Bailey too, as the head of the surgery department.  She’s not exactly my boss, but she’s not not my boss either.  April though.  And Hunt?  That blows my mind away.

“You are a very well-loved man.”

I have to look away to clear the lump in my throat.  When I get myself back under control, I try to make light of it by saying “They’re all just worried because I sign their paychecks.”

She makes eye-contact with me and smiles and nods.  Not in agreement, but in acknowledgement that I know that they love me.

“So, Jackson. Do you prefer Jackson?” I nod her my affirmation. “I know from about half a dozen different people what their opinions are on how you are processing. Now tell me in your own words.  How are you feeling?”

Where to start? “That’s a loaded question, how much time do you have?”

“I have all day. After I received the first email, but before the third phone, I cleared my day.”

With an embarrassed smile I shoot Callie a text that this could take a while and that she should go do something. I’ll text her when I’m finished. After I get the thumbs up sign in return, I turn my attention back to Liz.

 

“I had a good life before the attack. I don’t remember the event, or several days before hand actually. But coming to a damsels defense sounds like me.”

 

She just smiles and nods, listening to my story.

 

“Physically I feel better every day. I’m prone to headaches more than I was before, but that’s nothing I can’t handle and will probably taper off. My body’s getting stronger, but I still won’t be trying my hand at sit ups for a while.

Catherine Avery is my mother, as I’m sure you already knew. Dr. Bailey is our head of surgery. Dr Hunt is our head of Trauma, and while he’s not in the military anymore, once a soldier always a soldier. No man left behind and all that. He also used to be my boss and my teacher. I’m sorry that they bombarded you like that by the way.”

She shrugs gracefully, like it’s an everyday occurrence.

“And the other? Who is Dr Kepner to you?”

Thinking about April brings a smile to my face as always, even if it’s laced with something different now.

“April is my best friend. We were residents together at Mercy West before it merged with Seattle Grace. Over the years we’ve been acquaintances, friends, roommates and drinking buddies. Someone to cry with and a constant supporter in our corner to each other. And when I woke up from my coma, I thought that he was my wife.”

“And when did you realize that she wasn’t.”

“They told me right away. I realized for myself that things weren’t as I thought they were when I got my first look at her. She still looked like my April, but not my wife as I remember her. What I struggled with is that her mannerisms are eerily similar in both, timelines, for lack of a better term.”

“And you can clearly remember your own reality, and this alternate timeline?”

“Yes.  Events in my dream seem to align with events that happened for real.”

“For example?”

“Well, in reality, about 3 years ago April got a position with Elite Trauma Rescue Group. Are you familiar with them?

“No, I’m not.”

“It’s an amazing non-for-profit program that sends medical personnel along with ex-military members to emergency situations around the United States and North America. She spent a year with them. It’s kind of like the army reserves, or the Red Cross for Surgeons. On the weeks she was on call with them she needed to be prepared to hit the airport at a moment’s notice. It was an amazing experience for her.”

“In my dream-” I have to pause here, to gather and center myself.

“In my dream, we’d had a son. And he died. The pain of it, it almost killed April too. She joined the Army Medical Corps with Hunt for a 3-month tour. Then she signed up again, and again. All totaled she was gone almost a year.”

“And you clearly remember both events happening?”

“On the third full day after I woke from the coma, I woke up able to remember both timelines.” I decide to use my hunger games analogy for lack of anything better.

“Have you ever seen the Hunger Games movies?” I ask her.

“I have! My daughter and I both read the trilogy as well.”

“Trilogy huh?  I didn’t realize that. April made me watch it. She loves that kind of stuff. The part where the boy says that he can tell the difference between his real memories and the fake memories? It’s because the fake has a shiny feel to them. It’s the best way I have to describe it.”

“For future reference, that’s from both the last book and the last movie in the series, Mocking Jay. It’s not the Hunger Games.  I wouldn’t want April to think you’re not paying attention after all.”

That earns her a small laugh and a great break in my tension levels.

“Have you talked to anyone about your experience?

“No.  Everybody knows that I dreamt that April and I were married.  And I may have mentioned our daughter in those first moments.  I don’t remember.  But I haven’t said anything since then, and neither has anybody else.  Obviously, they are all concerned about me still. I think April suspects something, but she’s not one to push me about my emotional state if I don’t seem willing to talk.  And Callie knows.”

“Who’s Callie?  Is she your girlfriend?”

The bark of laughter that escapes me is probably indicative of my answer, but I try to explain it to her anyways. 

“Mark Sloan was my mentor, and my friend.  He died in the plane crash.  Mark had a daughter with Callie, who was adopted by Arizona, Callie’s wife.  The three of them made a beautiful family.  We all spent a lot of time together to begin with, seeing that our work circle and social circle all over lapped.  After the crash, when Sloan died, and April and I were no longer residents and Arizona and Callie started having issues, Arizona and April got really close.  Callie and I got closer by default.  She brought me here today actually.  I sent her off so that she isn’t bored silly waiting for me.  But if you are interested when we’re finished, I know she’d be pleased to meet you.”

“One last question Jackson.  How is the double timeline affecting you?  You seem to be handling everything exceptionally well.  Do you find it interfering in your life in any way?”

“So far, the only time it seems to come up is when something happens that reminds me of the dream life.  Being in my apartment helps, I never lived in this apartment in my dream.  I need to get back to work, back to the OR and cutting.  It’s easy to think about what never was when I have nothing to do.”

“Before we go any further, do you have any questions for me?”

I’ve been thinking about this for weeks now.  There is only one thing that I want to know.

“Will the memories go away?  What are the chances that they fade in time?

“I’m not going to give you the ‘The brain is an unpredictable organ’ speech.  You know that as well as I do.  What I will say is that you seem to have an amazing support system around you.  You’re familiar with concussion protocols, and you work in a hospital.  You’ve shown no warnings or indications that you are going to suffer from long term or permanent deficits resulting in the accident and the subsequent coma.  I have no reservations about signing your release to go back to work, so long as you start out slow.  Let’s not work on conjoined twins our first day back, shall we?”

I readily agree, relief washing thru me that I’m one step closer to stepping back into the OR.  She’s not finished yet though.

“That is the neurologist in me.  The psychiatrist in me has some additional concerns.  I think you need to give some thoughts as to why you dreamt what you did.”

“Well that’s easy, I’m in love with April. I ahh, I mean.”  Her surprised laugh exudes pleasure and she brings her hands together at her chest. 

“Talk about getting to the point! Now that will save us some time!  I bet you’ve never said that out loud before, let alone even let yourself think it until recently, have you?”

I shake my head no.  First time I admit it out loud to myself and its to a stranger. Nice Avery.  But that’s why it came out so easy.  As pleasant as this has been, we will probably never meet again.

“But Jackson, ARE you really in love with her?  Have you been in love with her all this time, which is why you dreamt what you did?  Or do you now just think you are in love with her because of what you dreamt?”

I know the answer to that too, and from the twinkle in her eyes I think so does she, but she doesn’t push it. 

“Are you going to be able to handle being around her when you are getting flashes of different life together?  I suggest you think long and hard about that.  If you want things to be the way they were pre-accident, I suggest you start back on your regular routines.  Whatever those were.  Date on Saturday nights or church on Sunday mornings.  And if it included a pre-morning text message to your best friend, then I suggest you start those back up again too.  The best way to get back to your old life is just to do it.”

I nod and agree with her and start to thank her for her time.

“But Jackson, you also need to consider whether you want that old life back.  To answer your question about the memories…Will they ever leave? I can’t tell you that.  But a question that You can answer is whether you want them to.”

 

 

 


	8. April Goes to Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April Goes to Church

April 

 

It’s Sunday morning and the only day I don’t work this week. I’m back in my own bed since Jackson is home in his, and it feels glorious to sleep in for a change. I’m so used to getting such little sleep that I’m only able to sleep into until 8:30, but the three additional hours feels gluttonous.

Matthew will be here to pick me up for church in an hour so I get out of bed and head into the bathroom. I haven’t been attending church as regularly as I used to with everything that’s happened the last few months, but I made sure I popped into the chapel at the hospital on a regular basis to pray and light a candle for Jackson. I’m standing in a towel in front if my dresser, looking for a bra and panties when my phone goes off. Hopping into my panties, I expect it to be Matthew to tell me he’s on his way here. Instead it’s from Jackson.

Hunt cleared him to return to work on Friday and as far as I’m aware he’ll be back on the board Monday, if in a reduced capacity at first. I know he also got cleared from the neurologist, but he didn’t tell me much about that. When I asked Callie all she’d tell me is that he took forever so she went to go walk around the mall for a few hours. It must have went ok because he’s been cleared on that front too, but I can’t help worrying about him. Every time I think about him laying in that bed, bruised and broken I feel sick to my stomach. I’ve seen him a few times this last week. He’s come in twice more to catch up on missed paperwork and foundation work. But it will be nice to see him on a regular basis again. Alex says I get bitchy when Jackson isn’t there to keep me in line. I don’t get bitchy. I just don’t like it when they don’t follow the steps and procedures in my ER. If he doesn’t want me to yell at him then he needs to do as he’s told.

My stomach flips like a teenaged girl when I see he’s texted me, but I tell myself I’m just happy he’s getting back to his old self.

Jackson: Going to church this morning?

April: Yes. I’m supposed to be getting ready now. What are you doing today?

I sit on the bed and undo my towel to put my bra on, but his response comes quicker than I expected.

Jackson: I was planning on going to the park this afternoon. They’ve got a good walking path I think. Want to come with me?

I’m supposed to go out with Matthew after church to brunch and to talk about the wedding. We’ve been engaged for almost a year now, but we were just recently able to agree on a date. And then Jackson’s accident happened and everything got pushed to the back burner. I know I’m supposed to be excited and anxious to finally get married but I’ve been having a hard time trying to build up any enthusiasm about it lately to be honest.

April: have you been cleared to drive yet?

Jackson: Yea, they both said I could but since I’m not working I haven’t tried yet.

April: I see what it is. You just want to use me for my wheels :)

Jackson: Please! My car is way better than yours and we both know it.

April: My car is perfectly adequate thank you very much.

April: How are you feeling? Ready to come back to work for real tomorrow?

Jackson: Netflix and chill my ass. If I watch one more super hero movie my brain is going to rot. I went in yesterday just to stare at the board.

April: I didn’t know you were there yesterday!

Jackson: It was late. You’d already gone home.

Jackson: I do have a surprise for you though.

April: Ooooh!! Is it a good surprise? Tell me tell me. Pleeeease :(

Jackson: Stop sending me emojis. You know I don’t use those.

April: Jackson! Tell me!

Jackson: I downloaded the Hunger Games Trilogy. Did you know those were actually 4 movies? Why do they call it a trilogy if it’s really 4 movies?

April: Really Jackson? Let’s watch them! Do you want to watch them? I had to practically force you to watch the last one with me.

And that’s how Matthew finds me, naked except for my panties, laying on my bed giggling like a school girl with my phone.

“April are you ready? I knocked but you didn’t answer. Whoa! Umm, April you’re still not dressed.”

“Matthew turn around!” It wasn’t necessary to tell him that as he’d already covered his eyes and turned around. I pull my towel back up around me and start to get up.

I should feel naughty that my fiancée has just caught me almost naked in my bed. We could just forget church and spend the day frolicking and making love. I’m tired of being a virgin, and I know Matthew is too. Which is probably why he keeps harping on about the wedding. And Matthew is a good looking guy. Not as good as Jackson, but then who is really? Speaking of Jackson…

“I’m sorry Matthew. There’s a situation with one of the doctors at the hospital and I need to go in this afternoon. Let’s take separate cars to church today. I’ll make it up to you with dinner this week. Promise. You can turn around now.”

He does not look pleased, but I didn’t really lie to him. Jackson IS a doctor at the hospital after all. I put one hand on his suit covered chest and lean up and give him a quick peck on the lips.

“Now get out so that I can get dressed. 5 minutes, promise.” And I gently shove him towards the bedroom door. He gives me one last look up and down then shuts the door behind him.

I hurry over to the bed and grab my phone again.

Jackson: We can make a day of it. Walk around the park then start on the movies. Sound like a plan?

Jackson: April?

Jackson: Are you still there April?

April: Sorry! Matthew just came over to take me to church. But we’re going to take separate cars. I be by your house around noon?

Jackson: Sounds great. See you later. Tell paramedic boy I said Hi.

April: Be nice. I’m ditching him for you today. Least we can do is be nice. And I’ll tell him you say hi. See you soon.

I throw on my bra and my dress, then grab a shirt and jeans to change into at Jacksons place. After a second thought, I toss the t shirt back and grab my favorite college shirt instead. It’s a little thin in places and is too tight on my breasts, but it’ll be comfortable when we’re walking. I’m certainly not wearing it because I look hot in it. It’s comfortable. I put my heels on, grab my tennis shoes, and then walk out the door.

 

I love the peace and serenity that I get from walking into a church. The act of giving thanks to God for all HE does for us and joining my faith with others gives me a buzz secondary only to that of cutting. I give all my attention to the service and to those around me.

Normally. Today however 15 minutes into the service I feel my phone vibrate in my purse. It’s Jacksons alert. He knows I’m at church. Is something wrong? I extract my hand from Matthews, whispering to him that my phone is going off then pull it out of my purse. Everybody in our church community knows I’m a trauma surgeon, so other than some curious glances nobody pays me any attention. I’m already making to do and to call lists in my mind when I see his message.

Jackson: prayer emoji, angel emoji

Jackson has sent me emojis! I am stunned, and then I have to put my hand to my mouth to smother a giggle. Matthew gives me a sideways glance and I mouth to him, ‘hospital.’

Jackson hates emojis. He’s always telling me to message like a grown up. I wonder what’s gotten into him.

April: devil face emoji, heart emoji. Jackson you scared me. You know I’m at church. I thought something was wrong.

Jackson: Nothings wrong, I’m sorry I scared you. I was just thinking about you.

A quick wave of pleasure rushes thru my system and I feel myself start to blush.

April: Do you want to come with me next week?

Jackson: You know that’s not really my scene.

April: I know, I just thought that if you were with me you wouldn’t miss me so much.

What? Miss me? He never said he missed me. Oh God April take it back! Fix it. I look up at the minister and over at Matthew, desperately wishing God would open the ground and suck me in whole, but my phone vibrates again mere seconds later.

Jackson: Can we go for waffles afterwards?

I am gob-smacked. Jackson just offered to go to church with me. Didn’t he? It sure seems like it. This must be some sort of Sunday miracle. Or perhaps long term brain damage on his part. Either way, I’ll take it.

April: Waffles it is, consider it a date <3

When my phone stays silent after that, I put it back into my purse and turn my attention back to the sermon. But it’s much harder to concentrate on God after that.

 

 

\--

Jackson

Its 11pm, and April just left my apartment. I offered to let her crash here tonight, but said that she had to go home since she didn’t have anything for her shift tomorrow. She has to be there at 6:30, but my shift doesn’t start until 9. I feel guilty for her being here for so long, she’s going to be tired tomorrow morning.

I thought she was trying to kill me when she walked out of my bathroom wearing an old Case Western shirt. I don’t think I’d ever told her that it was my favorite before, but today with that little strip of skin showing when she moves her arms and the snugness of it on her chest. She doesn’t normally wear it out in public because it is pretty snug. I’m lucky I didn’t ravish her on my couch right then.

We had a great day. We got some sandwiches and ate them at a picnic table at the park, then came home and watched the first 2 of those movies. I guess they aren’t as bad as I was dreading.

The whole day was perfect. Except that I had to stop myself from kissing her at least a dozen times. And the whole time we were together today I had Dr. Liz’s voice running thru my mind. Is it real, or was it only just a dream?

 


	9. First Week Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson is finally back to work.

Jackson

I’ve spent more time in my office since the coma than I have since the Foundation bought the Hospital. Hell I didn’t even want an office when my mother forced it upon me and did my best to pretend it didn’t exist. I know for a fact that several of the attending had taken to using it for booty calls.

At first I was in here because I had so much computer work to catch up on. By the end of the week I’m in here hiding out.

On the one hand, I fell back into my place in the hospital like I’d never left. After the first few “How are you doings?” my “I’m fine” got shorter and shorter. Word got around that I was snapping at people when they asked and it stopped. I started out with a few liposuctions and nips and tucks. Something small and not as time consuming to get me used to being on my feet for hours at a time again. All of the important surgeries that couldn’t or wouldn’t be rescheduled to different reconstructive surgeons in the area have been notified that I am back and are being put back in the schedule.

On the other hand, everything has changed. People look at me differently. They try not to, and never to my face, but I see it anyways. Whether it’s from the accident or the waking up from it I can’t tell. No one has tried to say anything to my face, except for a radiology intern who told me how brave I was then slipped me her phone number.

We were all in line at the cafeteria when she came up to me. All moon eyes and admiration.

“He’s only back a day before women are throwing themselves at him. Figures.” Karev said from in next to me. I was starting to crumple the number she gave me when he spoke up again.

“Dude! She was hot. And interns are always so easy. Keep the number for later if you don’t want to bang her now.”

At that April claims she has a patient she has to check on and leaves the line.

Callie puts a little more force than necessary into it when she smacks Karev on the back of his head. I can’t say I feel bad about it though.

“Good going dumbass”

“What? What did I do?”

I crumble up the phone number and toss it into the trash with the rest of our lunch when we’re done eating. Maybe I was ok with sleeping my troubles away before, but it’s going to be a while before I’m back there again.

\--

I find myself standing outside of the daycare on Friday afternoon. I was never a big baby person before. I didn’t dislike children, I but didn’t seek them out like Karev does either.

But now I find myself smiling whenever I walk thru the pediatric ward. And seeking out the daycare.

“Avery. What are you doing out here?”

I turn and see Callie walking towards me. “What are you doing up here? Sophia’s in school now not the daycare.”

“I was coming up to see if they needed any baby supplies. We’re obviously not having anymore and I thought I’d see if they wanted any of the stuff we don’t use anymore before I gave them to good will. Now talk.”

I shrug. She knows more than most, but I haven’t actively talked about what happened in my coma to anyone.

“I like looking at the kids.” She looks at me dubiously.

“Uh huh. Since when?”

“Since I had one. We had 2 actually.”

“Oh Jackson.” I’ve never taken well to sympathy, and her tone of voice irks me so I start to stalk off in the opposite direction. Callie quickly catches up and grabs me by the arm to slow me down.

“No wait up. Look at me.” I do, under duress. “Tell me about it? Please, I want to know. And it will help you. Didn’t Dr. Bennett say that you should talk about this stuff? Tell me.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start Callie.”

“Come on. Let’s go get some lunch. It’s still early enough in the day that the rest won’t be there yet. And then you can start wherever you want.”

One thing I didn’t realize I was missing while I was away was the cafeteria food. It’s not great, but when you’ve eaten it almost every day for the last 10 years of your life it becomes a staple. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m happy to be back eating crappy cafeteria food again.

After we grab our trays and find a table in the corner, she sticks her straw into her drink and looks at me expectantly.

“Her name was Harriet. We called her Hattie. She was almost 2. She had this head of beautiful light brown curls and skin a few shades lighter than mine. She was walking by the time I woke up. Getting into everything. She loved being in the daycare. Some times on our days off I think she would have preferred to be there then at home with us.” Callie just smiles and nods.

“You said 2 kids?”

“She had an older brother, but he died.” The humor in her eyes dies a little, but she gives me the ‘go ahead’ indication without saying anything.

“She saved us. Hattie did. We were pretty messed up after Samuel, that was his name, after Samuel died. He only lived a few minutes after birth. It broke us, as people and as a couple. We were going to get divorced, but when we went to sign the papers I couldn’t do it. I love her. Loved her. And then she told me she was pregnant again. The day we felt the baby move for the first time was the happiest moment in my life. I’d been trying so hard not to get my hopes up. To be strong for April and to, to stay detached. I don’t think I could have gone thru that again, to lose another child the way we did before. But she was perfect, absolutely perfect.” I don’t know if talking about it is making me feel better or worse. My story is coming out patchy, but coherent enough I guess.

“They almost died in childbirth. There was a storm. What is it with us and storms huh?” Callie laughs ruefully and takes a bite of her salad, twirling her fork in a circle to indicate for me to go on.

“April was at Mer’s house. Mer’s old house. It’s a long story. Anyways the storm got worse, and her water broke. The contractions came fast and hard, there was no time to get to the hospital. She was with Ben. They called an ambulance then bunkered down to have the baby. But when Ben examined her, the baby was feet first, with the chord protruding into the birth canal. April didn’t care about herself. All she cared about was that baby. They got us on speaker phone. Me, Bailey and Arizona. I listened to April make Ben promise that no matter what happened he would save the baby. It was a house full of doctors, so they’d found a bag of supplies. A scalpel, gloves and some gauze. But not enough. He used kitchen towels for packing. And ice to try to numb her. But of course, that didn’t work. So April, without so much as an aspirin, climbed up onto Meredith’s kitchen table and had Ben give her a C-section. “

“‘If you feel like you’re going to lose me, if I’m bleeding out. You make sure my baby is ok. You save this baby.’ She said. And there was nothing I could do but stand and listen.”

Callie makes a strangled noise at that. My palms are sweating and the telling of this story is pulling my emotions in directions I don’t want to deal with at work, but I tell myself over and over it didn’t really happen. It wasn’t real. Callie reaches across the table and grabs my hand.

“I stood on the other side of that speaker phone, begging my friend to save my wife, to wait for the ambulance, to do anything except for what he was planning to do. But you know April. If you think she’s determined now, you haven’t seen anything compared to momma bear April. And I listened to my wife scream in pain and horror, and then the line went silent as she passed out from shock and blood loss. That was the longest 30 seconds of my life, begging to know what was going on. And then it was done. The baby was on the kitchen table next to April crying and Ben was trying to pack April as best he could when the ambulance finally pulled up.” It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

“Hattie. She was perfect. And every time I held her in my arms I remembered what her mother braved to bring her into this world. And I find myself missing the feel of a baby in my arms.” I shrug like it’s no big deal. “The way she smiled when she heard my voice. The look on Aprils face when she said dada before momma. And I know it wasn’t real. I don’t think it was. I know that when Hattie was being born in that, dream or whatever, I was dating a set of twins. But I find that just because it wasn’t real doesn’t mean that I don’t miss it. How is it possible to ache for something that you never had to begin with?”

I can’t take this. I can’t take the way she’s looking at me and I can’t take the way this makes me feel. Like I am desperate to hold April in my arms and reassure myself that she is ok.

“But I’ll tell you what I don’t miss. Dirty diapers.” And that breaks the tension. Callie laughs and smiles, and pulls her hand back to use both to wipe the tears that had built up behind her eyes.

I look at my phone and see it’s almost 1pm by now. I’m surprised that no one else has shown up and wonder if Callie didn’t send a mass text telling people to stay away. Either way I’m grateful that it’s still just the two of us.

“Have you thought about talking to April about this?”

I push my tray away towards the middle of the table and run my hands over my head, letting out a frustrated breath.

“Have I thought about it? Yes. Of course I have. But she has a life. Just because I had some super freaky realistic day dream doesn’t mean there is any difference between us today and where we stood 2 months ago.”

“But Jackson” and she leans close and lowers her voice. “You are in love with her. Don’t you think she deserves to know that?”

“But am I really? Or is this just residual mess left over from my dream or whatever? What right do I have to screw up her life over something that may not still be there in another 2 months’ time? If I were really in love with her then don’t you think I would have known it before a group of thugs put me into a coma for 3 weeks?” I am practically hissing at her across the table. If anybody were to walk up on us now they’d probably think we were having a lovers spat.

“Look Jackson. I say this with all the love and affection I have for you, and that’s a lot. But you’re full of shit. And martyr? It’s not a good look on you. You and I both know that you’ve been in love with her since residency. I don’t think the dream thingy made you feel things that you weren’t feeling before. I think it’s made you acknowledge feelings that have been there for years. But you’re not acknowledging them. You’re still trying to act like nothing has happened. And because of that you’re staring into the windows of the daycare like a lost puppy.”

The hospital cafeteria is not the place that I would have chosen to have this conversation. I’m starting to get a headache and I rub my hands over my head again in frustration.

“I don’t know ok, I just don’t know.” I do the only thing I can do at this point, I get up and get back to work.

 

I don’t have any surgeries for this afternoon so I head down to the pit to soak in some of the Trauma vibes. Saving a wicked Trauma patient always puts you into a good mood. April is in surgery at the moment, and I don’t want to say that the pit is slow, but there’s nothing pressing that could use my attention. An ambulance pulls into the bay, and Hunt and I walk out to meet it. It didn’t have its lights or sirens so it’s not a life or death situation, but maybe they have a head lac that could use a plastic surgeons hands. The rigs doors open up and look who pops out.

“Great, just great. It’s the choir boy.” Hunt gives me a strange look then steps up to take the gurney.

“Alexandra Jo, 26. Fainted while at the store. When she didn’t come to right away the manager called 911. Large bore IV in the field with fluids given. She regained consciousness about halfway here.”

Hunt takes lead and I follow behind. Butt chin is still reeling off stats and information, then turns to me.

“Jackson, good to see you back man.”

“Good to be back.”

“Can you sign this for me?”

“Sure, of course.” He hands me the clip board to sign, then when he takes it back reaches out to shake my hand.

“Now that you’re back at work, maybe I’ll be able to spend some time with my fiancée huh?” He says it with a smile on his face and a pleasant tone of voice, but the way he squeezes my hand is anything from friendly. If I didn’t know any better I would think he’s trying to break my fingers. Sorry for him I’ve been using those grip strengtheners since the day I woke up from the coma. If he thinks he’s going to catch me weak and out of form he has another thing coming. I squeeze back as hard as I can, then don’t give any indication that he got to me when he pulls away. I get the pleasure of seeing him flex his fingers at his side.

“When you agree to marry a bad ass trauma surgeon, you need to be prepared with all that comes with it. It’s not too late to re-think if you can handle how awesome she is. Not every mortal man can handle her.”

See, we’re being nice. Just like April always tells me to.

“I think I’ve got it thanks. I guess I don’t mind her being away so much. After all, it’s me waiting for her when she comes home at night.” He pats me on the back, hard, which I hate, then starts back to the Ambulance bay doors. “Try to stay out of any comas okay?” And with that, he’s gone.

“What in the hell was that Avery?” Hunt is looking at me like I’ve sprouted a second head.

“Just some friendly banter between a mortal paramedic and a surgery God. Not a big deal.”

Hunts grunt is the only response I get. This day sucks. 

"Page me if you guys need me.  I'll be in my office."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went a little off cannon in this chapter, but I can't bring myself to write anything where April and Jackson ever get divorced.


	10. The secret is out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson is having a hard time keeping his emotions to himself.

April –

I’ve been in surgery for almost 12 hours now. I probably still have 2-3 hours to go. The patient’s car was crumpled like an accordion. Liver lac, kidney damage, removed the spleen. Two broken legs, a broken collar bone. She-Shepherd stopped a brain bleed. He even ruptured his bladder. It’ll be months before he can leave the hospital, if he ever does. And then another couple of months at a rehab facility after that.  But his heart has held strong, so we're patching him up as best as we can.

Jackson came into the gallery about 6am. He must be having problems sleeping. He’s been here before me every day since he came back and leaves after me unless someone shoos him out of the hospital beforehand. I wish he’d talk to me about it. He’s not fully recovered yet, and if he pushes himself too hard he’s just going to end up back in the hospital again.

I don’t like thinking about that. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d died. When I saw him on that gurney a part of me died too. I’d never been that scared in my entire life, shooting included. To lose my own life is one type of fear. The fear of losing him is something completely different. Matthew called ahead to say that he had him on the rig. He wanted to know if he should bring him to us, even though it was bad and there were closer hospitals. He should have known better than to even ask. Of course he needed to be brought here. We’re the best trauma center on the upper west coast. I sent a mass text to let people know he was on his way then promptly threw up.

They wouldn’t let me help him. Almost everyone was pulled into the trauma room, whether because they needed to be there or they wanted to be there. But Alex grabbed me and held me back, all the while with me kicking and screaming that I had to help him. I still haven’t forgiven him for that. They gave me the ‘we can’t treat family members’ bullshit. If Jo had been on that table you know he would have been right there next to her, leading the charge to save her life, not hovering uselessly in the background. Besides, we’re all family. Webber said he would call Catherine, but I told him I had to do it. It was my responsibility. I was his healthcare proxy if she couldn’t be reached. Webber needed to stay with Jackson. Catherine would feel better to know that her husband was with her son. Hunt wouldn’t let me into the OR with them either. Tried to use his Soldier voice on me. Pffft, that stopped scaring me years ago. I have my own soldier voice now. But I didn’t want to distract Hunt any more than he already was. I told them though that if they tried to stop me from watching from the gallery, I would cut them with my bare hands. So we closed the gallery to outsiders, and I alternated between pacing and squeezing the hand of whoever was unlucky enough to sit next to me.

I shake my head to clear it of these unhappy thoughts. Jackson is fine.  He'll always be fine.

“Are you ok?” It came from one of the people in the room with me, but I’m not sure who.

“Yea, I’m good thanks. Just getting the blood flowing again.”

I take a peek up into the gallery again. We haven’t really talked since we hung out the day before he came back to work. I asked him about going to church with me last weekend, but he said that he just needed to catch up on his sleep.  He promised that we could go soon. If he’s at the hospital before 6am without needing to be I can see why he needs a day to sleep. Maybe I can convince him to take a nap in an on call room today.

The next time I peek my eyes up towards the gallery, Callie has joined Jackson in the viewing area and they’re leaning towards each other talking. I wonder if they have something going on that they haven’t told the rest of us about. They’ve been spending a lot of time together lately. I even saw them arguing in the Cafeteria last week. Callie is bi after all. I know that she and Arizona have still been messing around, but Arizona says that she’s not going to push to make anything more serious then it is until Callie does. I think she likes having a fall back. God I wish they’d just get it together already. But maybe the reason they haven’t gotten back together is because Callie is messing around with Jackson.

Which would be perfectly fine. Of course it would. Why wouldn’t she want to mess around with Jackson? He’s gorgeous, sweet, smart, and rich. She’s beautiful. And strong. And doesn’t mind having sex all over the hospital. Maybe they’d want to double date with me and Matthew? No, no that’s taking it too far. I’m not sure I’m ready to double date with Jackson. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to double date with Jackson. We tried that once or twice when Matthew and I first got together and the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.

“…you guys bickering about? Again?” Another peek up into the gallery shows that Alex has joined the party. He’s leaning by the door with a bag of chips in his hands. Jo must not have been home when he got ready this morning. She’d never tolerate him eating chips for breakfast.

“Nothing” says Jackson.

“Oh yea nothing at all. Just that he’s miserable. And a moron. And is making the rest of us suffer because of it!”

“Oh, so we’re finally allowed to talk about this now?” Asks Alex. They must not realize Alex hit the speaker button when he leaned against the wall. I should speak up and say something to them. Anyone of us should speak up and say something to them.

“Talk about what?” says Jackson.

“That you’re in love with Kepner.”

My heart stops beating, then kicks into overdrive and the room starts to spin. I can’t stop what I’m doing, my hands are in this guys stomach, but I have to close my eyes and breathe in thru my nose to center myself. Every one of my nurses and techs looks around at me and at each other. My intern starts to open his mouth, but I hiss at him “SHUT IT!” The fierceness in my whisper belays my intentions despite the fact that he could barely hear me.

I can’t help but turn my face fully up at them now, but no one is paying any attention to the surgery anymore. They don’t notice the entire OR watching them with rapt attention.

Callie throws her hands up in the air. “See Jackson! This is what I’m talking about. We all know. Everyone but her. “

“Dude. The longing looks you stare at her with are pathetic. We know better than most that life is short. Just do it already. Spare the rest of us the pain of having to watch you two any longer. She’s totally into you too man.”

My heart starts beating so fast I almost miss what they say next.

“I’m not doing this. You think just because you got married that all the rest of us are just pining away too.”

“You’ve been pining over Kepner long before I got married.”

“I’m not pining over April. And I’m not talking about this. Just leave me alone alright guys!”

Alex shrugs and tips the rest of the chips into his mouth, then follows Jackson out of the gallery, Callie on their heels. The red light from the speaker now shows where Alex's body was covering it up.  Normally innocuous, it's now shining as bright as a spotlight.

The strain in the OR is palpable. I drop my gaze back to my patient and try desperately to get my emotions back under my control.

“April honey? Are you alright?”

I slump in defeat at the sound of Catherine speaking up from across the table. I’d forgotten she was in here. She offered to assist me on the bladder repair and I’d jumped at the opportunity to work with her. But now, oh God she’s Jacksons mother!!!

Buck up April. I straighten my spine and put as much of a smile into my eyes as I can.

“Of course Catherine. I just feel bad for poor Jackson. Alex married his best friend and now he thinks everyone else should too. He must forget about what a ladies man Jackson is.” I force a laugh out and reach my hand out for more sutures. “This isn’t the first time there’s been a misunderstanding about our relationship. I mean look at him, then look at me. Right? There’s no pining going on. Jacksons got his pick girls.  Pick of women. People just don’t understand best friends of the opposite gender.” After all these years I still babble when I get nervous. I know my voice is high and overly perky, but I can’t help myself.

The thought of Jackson dating other people makes me want to stab something, which is a bad feeling when I’m in the process of stitching someone back together.

“Do you need to step out dear? I can finish up here.”

“No no of course not! I’m great here. Your repair on that bladder is exquisite by the way. Did I ever tell you I thought about urology before I picked Trauma?”

After a searching look Catherine follows my lead, and Jackson isn’t mentioned again.

\--

I take a two hour nap in an on call room, then head downstairs to relieve Hunt from the ER. Hunt is a great administrator and an excellent surgeon, but the ER is my domain. It doesn’t run as smoothly when I’m not there, and the whole hospital knows it. It’s why my shifts have a tendency to change depending on expectant need whereas most attending surgeons have a set schedule.

Luckily it’s a light day. No big incoming traumas so far. She sedate pace is good for my aching muscles and body, but not so great for my over active mind.

I know Jackson has been different since he woke up from the coma. I think about what they told me every day, several times a day. That Jackson thought we were married when he woke up. But I don’t feel like it’s my place to push him about it if he doesn’t want to talk about it. And it’s obvious he doesn’t.

And them getting on him like that this morning was just uncalled for! Of course he loves me! We’re best friends. That doesn’t mean that we’re in love with each other.

There have been…moments. I won’t deny that. Intense, panty shattering moments that I thought would bring me to my knees. But they always passed. And Jackson never seemed anything more than uncomfortable afterwards. And fine yes. I don’t particularly like when I see him with other people. And he doesn’t like Matthew all that much. But that has nothing to do with us being in love with each other. He just doesn’t really like Matthew. And to be honest Matthew doesn’t really like him either. But it’s not because Jackson is in love with me. Looking at me with longing? That’s simply ridiculous. If anything I stare and HIM with longing. No! That’s not what I meant. Stop it Kepner. Get a grip. It’s been years since I’ve had a crush on Jackson. It was never even a big crush. Just a tiny little bleep of a crush. It’s irritation that’s got my skin flushed and my heart fluttering right now. Not desire. I’m in love with Matthew. There, yes Matthew. When I think about kissing someone, I think about Matthew, with his big hands, and tall muscled body. Green Blue eyes and mocha colored skin, just enough beard to tickle my face, pushing me against the door of an on call room, or maybe on the desk of his office…

“Kepner!”

“What? Yea, I’m here, what’s up Hunt?”  I jump out of my seat so fast it tumbles to the ground behind me. Bending over to scoop it up and set it right again, I pray that Hunt can’t tell what I’ve been fantasying about.

“Uh huh. Just got a call about a family coming in. They’re being sent here from their primary physician’s office. 16 yr old male, Type 4 OI. He has a leg fracture that his Doctor felt needed to be set in a hospital setting. They mentioned that he didn’t hear the neighbor’s dog running towards him which it what caused the fall, so get ENT down here too to check out his ears for possible blockage and hearing loss.”

"Will do boss."

 

Jackson                                                                                                                                              

 

It’s been a long day, and an even longer week. I’m supposed to meet Alex at Joes tonight for a drink, but I think if I see him before I get off tonight, I’m going to cancel. I’m still not back to full strength and I underestimated what running around a hospital of this size would do to me. And I’m still irritated about this morning. It was a low blow attacking me like that when April was so close by. She weakens by defenses.

I’m on my way to the pit for an ENT consult. 16 yr. old boy with partial hearing loss, in the hospital for a leg fracture after a fall. I haven’t had a chance to look over the chart yet, and that’s where I screwed up. It should be Doctor 101, whenever possible know what you are walking into.

And so, when I walk into the room with my head down after having grabbed the tablet from the desk, it feels as if I’ve been hit with a truck when I look up and see a teenaged boy, deformed and in pain after a short life while suffering from what can only be osteogenesis imperfecta. April is talking to the family, answering questions with her professional face and shooting smiles at the patient on the bed. His body is small and compressed, with skin the perfect mixture of mine and Aprils and short curly hair.

At the sound of my distressed “Samuel”, all heads turn towards me. The room starts to spin, and all I can hear is the sound of my heart beat pounding into my ears. I see April’s mouth moving, gesturing to me and to the boy, but it is beyond my powers to understand anything that is coming out of their mouths. I see the parents step forward to introduce themselves, reach a hand out to shake mine.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” It’s the only thing I can stutter out before I turn and flee, leaving a hurt family and a very confused April in my wake.

\--

She finds me in the basement. I’m not sure what made her think to look here, as we hadn’t gone down to the tunnels in years. It’s normally an intern spot. But I guess it just goes to show she knows me best. I’m sitting on an old gurney, knees pulled up and my head dangling in between them trying to get my breathing back under control. I don’t think I’ve had a panic attack like this since the shooting. Is it possible to have PTSD over something that didn’t really happen to you? Maybe I should call Liz.

April sits next to me, facing towards me and crosses her legs Indian style. “Do you want to tell me what happened in there?”

Do I? I’ve avoided telling her so much of my experience. My alternate reality. I do, I decide. I want to tell her this. I need to tell her this.

“We had a son.” I say simply. She nods and waits for me to continue, reaching out to grasp my hand. To comfort us both I think. I put my other hand on top of hers and I realized we’ve both automatically started rubbing our thumbs in circles.

I can’t look at her directly. It hurts me too much. It’s the worse memory that I own, and it’s not even real. But my feelings are real. I take a deep breath, then look into her face.

“His name was Samuel.” Breath in, breath out. “He had osteogenesis imperfecta, grade 2.” She takes a sharp intake breath and now she understands.

“We found out when you were 23 weeks along. We’d been calling him our little Buddha because of the way he was sitting in your belly.”

“I walked out of an elevator the afternoon after you had had an ultrasound, and Herman and Edwards were talking about how sad it was that the baby would live a short and painful life. How terrible it was for the parents. They hadn’t told us yet, and they didn’t see me. Then I knew it was ours because they mentioned the Buddha position.” I have to stop to gather myself. It wasn’t real. It. Wasn’t. Real. It hurts almost as bad as when I told her the first time.

“We thought it was just a cute position, until we learned that the reason, he was in the same position at multiple ultrasounds was because he couldn’t move. He was in pain, at risk for bone breakage even in the womb. We decided to induce labor rather than risk carrying him to term and making him, making us, suffer any worse than we already were. That was my mom’s idea actually. That we will hold him and love him for as long as he lives. Until God takes him. Sometimes her pushiness is a good thing.” That earns me a small smile. “The morning we went into the hospital, they had us fill out paperwork. Permission to do the induction, agreeing to the birth/termination, and then the birth and death certificate at the same time, to avoid having to deal with the paperwork and the pain it would cause afterwards. We didn’t have a name picked out yet, and it killed you to have to fill out those forms. You couldn’t handle it, and you left.”

I take a few deep breaths to try to steady myself.

“When I couldn’t find you, I went to the chapel. I talked to God.” At this she squeezes my hand. I see tears are slipping down her face, slow and quiet. “I don’t believe in God, but you do. You needed him. I needed him to be there for you.”

I shrug. “Apparently he was. You’d found a woman walking around the ER. Her fiancée had died, and they told her that she could take his belongings and go, and she wasn’t ready. So, she walked around in the scrubs we had given her all day long waiting to be ready to go home without him. Somehow, she gave you some sort of peace, and together we went back upstairs.”

“We named him Samuel Norbert Avery, after my favorite uncle. The priest came to baptize him. 45 minutes later he was gone.”

By this point, we’re both actively crying. She reaches for me, and I wrap myself around her. “I’m so sorry” I feel more than hear here whisper against my neck.

Her simple words are my undoing. I pull her to me as tight as I can and sob out. “I’m so sorry April. I tried so hard to help you. And we just fell apart. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”  It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It’s my new mantra. It wasn’t real, Samuel wasn’t real. But April is. I breathe in her sent, feel the body that I both know so well and not at all, and feel myself start to relax.

“Shhhhh. I’m right here. It’s ok. I’m right here.”

 --

We sit there like that for a long time. Calming each other with our presence alone. When she pulls back, I let her go reluctantly. It’s ironic that discussing the worst thing that’s ever happened to me has led me to be the most at east I’ve felt in weeks. I can only assume that it’s because this is the closest we’ve been physically since I’ve woken up. But this April doesn’t belong to me.

“Do you” she starts to say then stops. She seems to think over it a moment, then tries again. “Do you ever wonder what caused such a vivid experience? Do you ever wish you didn’t remember it?”

What a loaded question. I know exactly what caused it. It only took a coma to make clear to me what has been obvious to the whole world for years. Well, clear to everyone but us. Denial can be a wonderfully blinding emotion. But regret it? How could I possibly regret anything that brought me closer to her? I do regret that everyday I’m reminded that one choice differently here or there and we could have had that life together. That every day I hear Mark Sloan’s words echo around in my brain and in my heart.

I push a strand of her hair behind her ear and tell her the only truth I can.

“For every time I’ve wished I could burn the memories out of my brain I’m twice as thankful that they are there.”

And that’s the truth. But while my life has already been burned to the ground, I’m not willing to do that to hers. So, I do the only thing left to me. I get up, offer her a hand to pull her to her feet, and we head back up to do our jobs.

 


	11. The Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April get's tricked into having a good time

April –

It’s been a week since the OI case. Jackson seems to be doing ok. Good Even. I haven’t talked to him about what we heard in the OR suite, and as far as I’m aware nobody else has either. I have gotten lots of text messages from him throughout the days and sometimes even at weird times at night though. He needs to sleep more.

He skipped out on church with me again this weekend. But I don’t think it was because he didn’t want to go with me. Well I mean he doesn’t believe in God so of course he didn’t really want to go. But it’s the only day I have off on a fairly regular basis, so it’s a good day to get together. I think it was because Matthew was going. It wasn’t until after I told him that Matthew would be there that he said he couldn’t make it.

On Wednesday afternoon he practically skips over to me looking over at the surgery board. I don’t try to suppress the smile it brings to my face. His eyes are sparkling with mischief.

“So April! How’s your day going?”

“Good. What do you want Jackson?”

“What makes you think I want anything?” I give him the look that statement deserves.

“Ok well. I need a favor.”

“Go on…”

“You know my mom been driving me nuts take on a bigger role in the Harper Avery Foundation? ‘Grow Up child! Get your legacy on.’”

His spot on impression of his mother makes me laugh.

“That’s not bad advice”

“I know that. That’s why I agreed to go to this stupid Charity Ball this weekend. But I’m afraid to go alone. All those single ladies will take one look at an available Avery and pounce on me.” His boastful, yet probably accurate description of the evening makes me laugh once again.

“Just let them spend a little time with you. They’ll get over it quick enough.” I love teasing him like this. I so rarely get the opportunity.

“Mean.”

“Well I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

“That’s where the favor comes in. I need you to come with me. Protect me from the vultures.”

It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d gone to an event with Jackson, but it’s been a long time since we’d done so. Years.

“And how exactly am I supposed to protect you from the gold diggers?”

“Just use your trauma goddess voice and they’ll all go scampering off in the opposite direction. Threaten them with scut”

“Trauma Goddess huh? That is certainly a start to get me to do things you want.”

“I’ll have to remember that for future reference.”   And oh boy did that do things deep in my gut. Get your mind out of the gutter April.

“When is the ball?”

“Saturday night, 8pm, Civic Center ballroom.”

“I have to work on Saturday.”

“That’s one of the benefits of owning the hospital. I could probably get you the day off.”

“You may own the hospital, but Bailey’s the boss. I’ll ask her if I can get off early that day.”

“Thanks Apes, I owe ya one.”

“You’re welcome Jackson. Don’t hold your breath though. I’m not sure she’d be willing to let me off so that I can go to a party. I’ve missed a few shifts the last few months, on a count of someone trying to die and all that. ”

“How inconsiderate of them.”

“Incredibly.” I’ve missed this.

“I have to go to surgery, but I’ll let you know as soon as I talk to Bailey.” I’m light on my feet as I go and talk to my patient, but my mind is already fast forwarding to Saturday. I really don’t have anything to wear to a charity ball. It’s been years since I’ve had to go to a formal event. But I’m sure one of my old dresses will work ok.

I’m getting ready to scrub when my phone goes off, and to my surprise it’s Catherine.

“Hey Catherine.”

“April Darling. I just got off the phone with Jackson, he tells me you’ll be joining us this weekend.”

“Yes, I’d love to, so long as Bailey is ok with me taking off a few hours early on Saturday.”

“Saturday? Didn’t Jackson tell you? The event is in Boston love. But don’t worry about it. It’s all taken care of. I’ve already spoken to Miranda. You’ll fly out on the jet tomorrow, and I was thinking we’d do a spa day on Friday. Mani Pedi’s, facials. We need to go shopping too.”

“Whoa whoa whoa Catherine. Jackson said nothing about it being in another state. I can’t take 3 days off of work.”

“Of course, you can child. It’s already done! Consider it a thank you for taking such good care of my son these past few years.”

“Catherine I.”

“Nonsense. I won’t hear any more about this. Get some sleep tomorrow morning, the plane leaves at 10am. Jackson and Richard will be on it as well of course. I’ll see you tomorrow evening for dinner.” And then she hung up on me! My patient has already been rolled into the OR so I start to scrub and head in there. There’s no way I can go to Boston for the weekend. The Avery’s have lost their minds!

It’s about 20 minutes later that I realized I’ve been set up. Bailey comes in the OR, perky as can be. Or as perky as can be for Bailey. And instead of yelling at me for messing up her OR board and screwing with her schedule, she tells me that everything’s been handled and to have a good time. As a matter of fact, I should go home and pack after I’m done with this case. The smirk on her face says it all. I, have been played.

\--

“Jackson Avery, get your ass over here!” He was trying to turn the corner away from me, but I know he saw me. And everybody on the surgical floor probably heard me yelling for him. He was coming this direction until he got a peek of me storming down the hallway to find him then turned on his heel and tried to bolt.   Chicken shit.

He comes towards me reluctantly, darting his eyes around the hallway. Probably hoping that someone will come up and rescue him. I recognize the expression of a surgeon praying for a multi car pileup.

“You’re mad.”

“Ya think? Whatever gave you that idea?” Hoping to avoid a scene, he pulls me by the arm and drags me into a supply room. When he sees that this is one that doesn’t lock, he pulls me deeper into the corner. I deliberately ignore the butterflies I get from being pulled into a dark secluded corner with Jackson.

Instead I give him my best Intimidating Attending scaring an intern face and cross my arms over my chest.

“I was afraid if I told you it was in Boston that you’d say no.” Of course I would have. At first. But spending hours over an open body gives you nothing but time to think. And after thinking about it I think it sounds awesome. A day at a spa with Catherine? Yes please! I haven’t had a proper break from the hospital in years. Webber is always fun in a social setting. I would have agreed to it eventually I’m sure. But there’s no need for him to know that. Tricking me into it was wrong. He deserves to squirm a bit for it.

“You were afraid right! You know I can’t just leave for days at a time without any notice. I run the emergency department. It was wrong to try to trick me into it.”

“Would it make you feel better to know that this has been in the works for a week or two? I knew I had to go and my mother said I should bring you. She knows I hate to do these things by myself. Who better to come with me than you? I told her you’d never go for it, but she told Webber, who told Bailey, and the next thing I knew people were volunteering to cover your shifts for the weekend. It really wasn’t all that short notice. To everyone else anyways.” He pushes my hair behind my ears and it dawns on me how touchy feely he has been lately. It may be another affect from the coma, but I can’t say that I mind it. It reminds me of my dad soothing a horse on the farm. Soft voices and gentle touches.

“After everything you did for me? For my family? All the while still keeping your department running smoothly? Come on, you deserve a break.”

“Well, you know how much I love your mother.”

“And she loves you too.”

“Will we get to fly first class?” Might as well hit him where it hurts. Well, it would hurt me anyways. His pocket books are deeper than mine.

“April, we’re taking the family jet.” Oh god, they have their own plane? His face is cocky as hell, and it is an oh so good look on him. “So yes, first class all the way. Only the best for my person.”

“I don’t think Alex would pay for Mer to fly first class.” Just the thought is preposterous.

“That’s because Alex is an asshole. He’d probably charge his credit card then give Shepherd the bill.” The truth of that breaks any lingering need to torture him out of my system, and I let my smile show thru for real.

“Fine. I’ll go. I’d better get out of here so that I can pack. And I’ve got to tell Matthew. But now you really owe me. I expect you to come to church with me soon.”

“Maybe we can find one in Boston that you’d like to visit. And the Gerber baby will be fine. Tell him I say hi.”

“Be nice Jackson. I’ll text you later.” The desire to give him a hug is over whelming, so I do so. At first it seems to catch him off guard, but he quickly pulls me in tight.

“Thank you for asking me Jackson.”

“Thank you for coming.” He kisses the top of my head and lets me go.

“I’ll see you later.”

When I leave the closet, he is just standing there smiling at me. I find myself excited about this weekend. It will be nice to spend some time with friends without the pressures of the hospital and the on call pager. But first I have to talk to Matthew. I pull out my cell phone and send him a text.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters will be smaller in size, but I felt like they needed to be broken up rather than made into one long chapter. Sorry it took me an extra day to get it sorted.


	12. The Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April makes a choice

April -

 

April: Hey. I got off early today. Are you on shift? Can I come over? I’ll bring food.

Matthew: Sounds great, I’m starving.

April: See you soon

I decide it’s probably best to break the news to Matthew on a full stomach, so grab his favorite Chinese takeout on the way to his apartment.

When I let myself into his apartment an hour later, he’s sitting on the couch watching what looks like the Discovery Channel. Like the gentleman he is he hop’s up off of the seat while muting the TV and meets me halfway into his apartment, taking the takeout bag from me and pressing a kiss to my cheek.

“Shall we eat in the kitchen?” I follow him into the kitchen, and start taking containers out of the bag. Unlike when I eat with Jackson, he pulls plates out of his cabinets and starts to dole food onto one plate for each of us. I’ve never felt the need to dirty perfectly clean plates for something that is easier eaten straight out of the carton, but that’s just me. And we’ve had that conversation more than once.

We sit at the kitchen table and I let him lead the conversation. He’s talking about the more interesting cases he’s picked up the last few days, and I’m commenting when it’s appropriate. The longer we sit here the more my anxiety level rises and I know that I have to bring it up soon.

“What happened that you got off early today? Normally I’m getting the text of you cancelling plans, not making plans out of the blue.”

Here is it. Just say it like it’s no big deal. Which it isn’t.

“Bailey sent me home. Actually, I’m going to be off for the next few days.”

“Really, that’s wonderful! Think of all the wedding planning we can get finished. The date is coming up and we still have tons to do.”

“Actually, I’m still going to be working, kind of, just not at the hospital. There’s this charity function to earn money for the different hospital programs that they want me to go to. As a representative for Grey Sloan. It’s in Boston. We’re going to leave tomorrow, and I’ll be back on Sunday.”

“Boston? We’re going to Boston?

“Well I am. It’s a work function. You’d be bored out of your mind, I wouldn’t force that on you. Besides, with such short notice, you’d never be able to get your shifts covered.”

“Who are you going with then?” Here it comes. Cool and Confident April. It’s no big deal.

“Well, the event is being held by the Avery Foundation. So I’ll be going with Webber and Catherine.”

“And Jackson. You’re going on a trip with Jackson.” His voice sounds flat and angry. He’s looking at me like I’ve sprouted tentacles. Like he can’t believe what I’m telling him.

“Yes, Jackson will be there too.” Matthew picks his half eaten plate up and slams it into the sink. He faces me with his arms across his chest, radiating hostility.

“No, no you’re not going.” I must be hearing things. I expected him to be a little upset. But trying to refuse me from going? Oh hell no. I stand up too, to put us on a more equal footing.

“Excuse me. Are you telling me I can’t go? Since when did you get to tell me what I can or cannot do?”

“Since I became your fiancée. When you made a promise to honor me before God. Remember that? Or maybe you don’t since you don’t even wear my ring half of the time.” He’s gesticulating with disgust at my hand, and I look down to see that he’s right, I forgot to put my ring back on after work.

“You know why I don’t wear it at work Matthew, I’m a surgeon. A trauma surgeon at that. I lay hands on over half the patients that come into those operating rooms, no matter who ends up operating on them. Three times as many as the regular attending’s. I can’t take it off and on all day long. Hell Matthew! You bought me the chain for it.”

I yank the chain up from around my neck so that it’s dangling in the air between us. A silver chain to match the silver setting of the band, long enough to tuck into my shirt during the day.

“You’re not at work now are you? No. You’re in my home, NOT wearing my ring, telling me you are going away on a 4 day vacation with another man.”

“It’s not a vacation. It’s for a charity event Matthew. Sitting in a room in an uncomfortable gown for hours on end with boring insufferable people.”

“You spend too much time with them April. Too much time with HIM. I never see you anymore. You haven’t made any wedding decisions in months. We put down deposits then never mailed out invitations. I can’t separate you from the hospital long enough to write out addresses! You guys are co-dependent to a pathological degree. It’s time to move on from them April. We’re supposed to be starting a life together, a family.”

“No Matthew. Stop. THEY are my family.” I point out randomly into the city. “Grey Sloan hospital IS my family. Jackson IS my family. They protected me, sheltered me. After the shooting, Meredith and Derek took me in when I was too afraid to be in a room by myself. Jackson held me while I cried and pushed thru the nightmares. When I failed my boards, Hunt gave me a place at the hospital when everyone else turned their back on me. They gave me the love and confidence to become the person I am today. There is no me without them. They ARE my family Matthew.” My heart is racing, but other than that I am calm as ice. We may be slightly dysfunctional, but what family isn’t? I would do anything for those people. They are my family.

“Don’t do this April.”

“I’m not doing anything Matthew.”

“And that’s the whole problem isn’t it. Jackson needs you for a whole weekend and you drop everything and go running. I need you for a single afternoon to do, oh I don’t know, let’s say GET MARRIED and you can’t seem to fit it into your schedule. I’m tired of being in last place April.”

“It’s just a charity ball Matthew. I’m not picking up and moving around the world.”

“It’s not JUST a charity ball April. It’s everything that’s come before it and everything that’s sure to come after it. If you do this. If you go with him, don’t expect me to still be here when you get back.”

I don’t do well with challenges. I never have. That’s when I’m at my best, my strongest, when someone tells me that there is something that I can’t do. Standing here trying to sort thru my feelings, I notice there is one important one noticeably missing. I am furious. I am filled with regret. I am disappointed that it’s come to this. But one thing I am not is heartbroken. And that does break my heart. I take my chain off from around my neck and place it on the kitchen table, pick up my purse, and leave the apartment.

 


	13. Boston

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to Boston

Jackson –

I’m already on the plane, and the wait for her is killing me. I thought she was going to try to back out, but she called me last night to double check what she needed to bring with her so I took that as a good sign.

She’s not late. But her motto has always been that being early is on time and being on time is being late, so she is cutting it awfully close to being late.

Finally a car pulls up outside the plane and April gets out, carrying only a small rolling suitcase. Ever the efficient packer. Since my mom is going to take her shopping she really didn’t need to bring much.

“Stopping worrying so much Jackson. It’s going to be a good weekend” Richard says from his seat across from me.

I’m nervous though, and that’s not like me. I’m confident in all things. I’m an Avery.

“Wow you guys. Really. Why have I never been on this plane before?” The flight attendant comes forward to take Aprils bag from her and to offer us champagne. I’m going to say no when April speaks up first.

“Champagne would be lovely thank you.”

“Just seltzer water for me please” says Richard. April turns to me expectantly “Jackson?”

“I guess I’ll have champagne too.” I shrug my shoulders and decide to just go with it.

April is absolutely glowing this morning. She’s wearing a pair of blue capris, too tight to be allowed to wear in public. Her ass looks fantastic, and I pretend that Richard hasn’t caught me staring at it. She’s got some flowery top on and a pair of sandals. Her hair is loose and flowing around her shoulders and she has sense of ease about her that you don’t see too often. Maybe it’s because we’re away from the stress of the hospital for a few days.

She buckles into the chair next to me and thanks the attendant when she brings us our drinks. After she takes a drink she turns to Richard.

“Thank you Richard for helping to make this happen. I know you must have wielded your considerable influence over Bailey to get her to approve the time off for me.”

“It didn’t take much sweet talking at all April. You’ve been working yourself to the bone. After Jacksons’ accident, we were all worried about you. We can’t have you burning yourself out.”

“I don’t know why you were worried about me. _IIIIII_ wasn’t the one playing the hero and unconscious for a month as a result. I for one am still worried about Jackson. And annoyed.”

“Hey now. Don’t I at least get any credit for doing the right thing? Some people would call me brave. And yes maybe even a hero. After all, the woman did get away without a scratch didn’t she? So I didn’t really _play_ the hero. I was a hero. ’’ I use my most charming smile on her and am rewarded with hers in return.

“Yea Yea. Jackson the brave. Jackson the mighty. Jackson the handsome. Just don’t do it again ok?”

“You know April, I never said anything about being handsome. Do you think I’m handsome?” All thru our banter I’ve been leaning closer and closer to her, throwing all my best flirts in her direction. And she is giving back as good as she’s getting.

The pilot has to come over the intercom and ruin it by telling us that we’re getting ready to taxi and could we please lock our seats and make sure our belts are buckled. I guess it’s good that he interrupted us when he did, since I forgot that my step father is sitting less than 5 feet away from us and is probably preparing a word for word report for my mother as we speak.

I turn my chair back towards the middle of the plane, facing a very knowing Richard and hit the lock to set it in place. Then we settle in and get ready to enjoy the ride.

 

\--

April and my mom left about an hour ago to go to some over-priced spa, and I am already bored out of my mind. To Aprils delight we are staying in the penthouse instead of a hotel and our rooms are only separated by the bathroom. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to her that we would be staying at our residence, or why it didn’t occur to me to tell her, but I loved her reaction when we pulled up outside the building last night. Growing up on a farm in Ohio didn’t give her the opportunity to often bask in this type of opulence, and while normally I shun it for a more realistic existence, I got a thrill out of showing her the residence last night.

I pull out my cell phone and decide to give her a text.

Jackson: Hey

April: Hi

Jackson: What are you doing?

April: I’m at a spa. What do you think I’m doing?

Jackson: I’m bored

April: You are a grown man and a respected dr. I’m sure you can find something to entertain yourself.

Jackson: But where’s the fun in that?

I can almost feel her rolling her eyes at me thru the phone. See, this is fun.

April: I can’t text very well right now. Go for a run. Message me when you get done.

The jokes I could use about her not being able to use her hands are endless, but maybe not appropriate considering she’s with my mother right now. So I do as she says and pull on a pair of jogging pants and my sneakers and head out for a run. Mother has a treadmill in the penthouse, but I prefer to run outside. Downtown Boston is about as busy as you would expect, but it’s not as bad as it could be since it’s in the middle of the day. I do some stretches before I hit the elevator, then start out slowly on the sidewalk. The humidity is killer, but no worse than Seattle in the summer time. I soak up the sun and relish the fact that I’m almost back up to my old speed. I’ve even started back with my old routine with sit-up’s and pushups, though I’m still a ways to being back up to form on the sit-ups. My surgical cars are still causing some slight pulling and my abs are protesting what was once second nature. I up my pace and let my playlist take me thru all of my favorites from Kanye’s Gold Digger to Devo’s Poison.   I hear my phone alert, but don’t break stride to check it. Boston is beautiful, its architecture so different from Seattle’s. I love loving in Seattle, but I can concede that Boston has its perks as well.

When I get back to the building, almost an hour has passed, and I do some stretches in the elevator to help slow my pulse down. Without pulling my headphones out I check my phone alerts, and see that I missed a message from April. It’s a selfie of her in a thin silky spa robe with her hair piled high on her head. Is she trying to torment me? Well, 2 can play at this game. Without bothering to wipe any of the sweat off of my body first, I pull my shirt off and take a selfie. I make sure my arm is far enough back that she can get a good look at my chest, one of my best assets if I do say so myself.

Jackson: Did as I was told and went for a run.

April: Wow. Good to see that you are getting back into form.

Getting back into form? I wasn’t aware I was ever not in form. Another text comes thru and it’s another selfie, this time of her head peeking thru the face hole of a massage table. Immediately following that I get a text from my mother.

Mom: Leave April alone. We’re trying to get our pampering on.

Jackson: Which spa are you at? Maybe I need to get my pampering on too.

I wouldn’t really crash their spa day, but it’s so easy to get my mother riled up.

Mom: Don’t you dare.

I head into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water out of the fridge when Richard comes in.

“Go take a shower and get dressed son. You’re mother has given me strict instructions to take you to get some lunch. And to make sure you leave the women alone.”

\--

I’ll never understand why it takes women so long to get ready. Richard and I are sitting round in the living room, scotch in my hand soda water in his. I have my tux on, suit jacket hanging on the couch next to me, bow tie open loose around my throat. A Red Sox game is on the television. Baseball isn’t my favorite sport, but it’s better than nothing. My mother’s make up person came over hours ago, and the ladies have been locked in the master suite ever since. They didn’t get home from shopping until late last night, and then didn’t let me take a look at whatever they purchased. April and I continued to send messages all day long, but I couldn’t get any pictures of the new clothes out of her. From the amount of packages they brought home with them though, I feel sure that it was more than just a new dress for tonight.

I’ll have to ask how my mom pulled that off. April is normally pretty sensitive about letting me pay for things. ‘Kepner’s pull their own’ and all that junk. I know that the champagne was flowing all day long. Maybe that’s the trick to getting April to relax about money, keep her in a buzzed state of relaxation.

Suddenly I hear heels on the hardwoods and I turn towards the hallway. My mother is first, and she looks as beautiful as ever. She’s wearing a deep grey dress with some sort of wrap over her shoulders and her hair up in a twist. She winks at me and heads towards Richard who has stood with me to greet them. April comes up behind her and my first sight of her takes my breath away. She is absolutely radiant. Her dress is red, sharp like a fire work. It’s tight at her breasts and drops loosely to her feet. It’s made out of some sort of soft flowy material that I want to run my fingers thru. Her shoulders are bare, and I’m tempted to ask her to cover them that way no other man can see this sight. Her skin looks flawless. Her makeup must be exquisite because you can’t tell she’s wearing any at all. And her beautiful head of hair is loose and flowing in soft waves around her face and shoulders. If this is what they takes hours achieving, then its well worth the wait I decide.

She’s several inches higher on my person than normal and it would be so easy to tip her chin up to kiss me right now. She looks nervous, but excited, and I try to calm her fears.

“You look gorgeous.”

“You both do” says Richard. From the corner of my eye I see him lean down to kiss my mother’s cheek, and I do the same for April. She has a tight necklace around her throat that she reaches up to touch, and a diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist, and it’s then that I notice she’s not wearing her engagement ring. It’s not on its chain around her neck or on her hand where it should be. Duck face is a fool. If she were wearing my ring, it would never leave her body. It would be close to her skin at all times, in one way or another. Maybe that’s why she’s with him instead of me. Maybe that makes him the better man. No matter, she’s mine tonight.

“Here Jackson, let me fix your tie.” She hands me her purse, then reaches up and starts to tie my bowtie. It’s such a familiar and domestic move that I’m hit with a wave of longing. I try to hide it by handing her back her purse to grab my jacket but she says “I’ll get it.” And drops her clutch onto the couch to pick up my jacket. She holds it out for me to slip into, then smooth's it down the back, walking around to button the front and run her hands down there too to flatten any wrinkles.

“Yes Jackson, in answer to your earlier question. I do think you are handsome, but don’t let it go to your head.”

My mother and Richard both laugh at that, my mother’s head thrown back in pleasure, and it even earns a chuckle from me too. When I grab her hand and kiss her palm, I feel her shudder and see the gooseflesh raise on her arms and collar bones. Bowing as a gentleman of old would, I offer her my arm.

“May I have the pleasure of your company this evening?”

“Yes, I believe you may.” This is going to be a night to remember I think as we head out of the door.


	14. The Gala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April and the Avery's go to the Gala.

April –

I feel like a princess.  I look like a princess.   Outside the building a stretch limo is idling, and when the driver sees us, he gets out to open the back door.  Jackson helps me into the back seat and then comes in behind me.  His mother and Richard follow us in, sitting on the bench across from us.  So, this is what it’s like to be the royalty of surgery I think, running my hand over the seat.  It would be too easy to get used to this.

My phone vibrates, and since Jackson is sitting next to me discussing tonight’s plans with Catherine, it must be Matthew.  Again.  I’m not ready to deal with him yet.  And right now, all my senses are filled with the man sitting next to me.

“Catherine, I meant to ask yesterday.  What can I do to help tonight?”

“Help? Don’t be ridiculous.  You are here as a guest to enjoy and relax.  The only thing I need your help with is keeping Jackson in line and drinking the champagne.”

“You’re trying to turn me into a lush!  I’m going to have to live at the gym when we get back to Seattle to burn off all of the champagne from this trip.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  You need no such thing.  If anything, you’re too skinny.”  She effectively shuts me down then turns her attention to Jackson.  “Now Jackson, you’ll be auctioned off last on the Doctors Block.”

 “Me?  How did I get dragged into this?” Jackson turns towards me.  “This is the sort of thing you were supposed to protect me from.”

“Oh, hush child.  It’s all for a good cause.  Just think of all the pro bono work you’ll be able to do. Naturally the money that you bring in will be allocated for Grey Sloan.”  I can’t help the giggle that escapes me.  He looks so put out.

“What’s the Doctor Block?”

“It’s the part of the evening where we auction off the Drs of course.  It’s an afternoon with the Dr you’ve won doing winners choice.  Most often the Doctors end up doing tours of their facilities and having lunch.  Telling war stories.  Dr. Sloan was actually on the block once, well close to a decade ago now, and he gave the winner a nose job.  But he went for a considerable amount of money as you can imagine. That was right before he left New York.”

“I didn’t know that Catherine.” Says Richard.   “We should try to get Derek on the block next year.  I still hear people refer to him as McDreamy every now and again.  He’d probably bring in a pretty penny”

“I’ll tell you what Jackson.  If the person who wins you want’s a tour of Grey Sloan, I’ll give it with you if you want. As a trauma surgeon I have lots of war stories.”  Jackson stretches his arm out on the seat behind me, but the only response we get is a “Hmfph”.

The rest of the short ride is taken up by idle chit chat and talk about what to expect tonight.  I figured we’d have to be there early since Catherine is running it, but she has people that handle all of this for her so we’re able to arrive at our pleasure. 

The car door opens up to an honest to God red carpet and I feel a little thrill run thru me.  The boys get out first, then Catherine, then Jackson hands me out last.  When he wraps my hand around his arm, I can’t help but think about how awesome this night is going to be.

\--

I’m having a great time, but I can’t help but think that it would be more fun with Alex and Callie here.  Mer and Arizona.  No wonder Jackson hates coming to these.  We’ve spent the night side by side, him passing on idle gossip about the gentry around us.  I’ve met a few women who give me the side eye then try to pull Jackson away for a ‘moment to talk in private’ and I wonder if I’m meeting ex-lovers or wanna be future ones.  Either way, Jackson never leaves my side.  And every time he introduces me to someone new, he introduces me as ‘his April.’  I do accept several dances from different gentlemen, at Catherine’s insistence, but she herself always dances with Jackson or assigns him some chore during those times.  And I can always feel him burning a hole thru my shoulder blades watching me when we’re separated.  Probably trying to make sure none of his childhood competitors try to put the moves on me.  But he has nothing to worry about. 

As we come up to the Doc Block portion of the evening (as it is affectionally referred to) I find myself alone with Richard at our table.  While not all of the Doctors auctioned off tonight were of the male persuasion, the majority of them were.  Catherine grouches that even in the 21st century most people still prefer their doctor’s male.

Most of the people have gathered closer to the stage, to examine the merchandise as it were, I suppose, so Richard has taken Jackson’s seat next to me.  They’re earning great numbers in my opinion, but it’s much too rich for my blood.  I make good money, really good money actually.  The year with ETRG was a real boon on my resume and the job offers came swiftly after that.  Grey Sloan paid well to keep me, and thanks to Richard I even got them to repay the rest of my med school loans.  The majority of my income goes into my savings since I still live in the same apartment I got when Hunt hired me back after my first boards fiasco and have been driving the same car since residency.   Jackson and Matthew are always giving me a hard time about my car, but it runs fine, and I can’t see why to upgrade it.  But still, I can’t picture living in a world where I could drop 15 grand on what is essentially a hospital tour.  Even if it is for charity.

I understand now why Jackson was so hesitant to be auctioned off, even if it was for a good cause.  Some of these ladies are rabid.  I thought being that we were at a high-class charity gala everything would be prim and proper, but some of these women got downright scary for the younger doctors.  Catherine herself is up now as the second to last Doctor to be auctioned.  She’s loud and boisterous, playing with the crowd.

“Come on now fellas.  I’m a urologist, which means I spend my time handling penises all day long.  You know you want to bid on me!”  I had just taken a sip of champagne and her comment makes me choke and bubbles come out my nose.  Richard laughs like the good sport he is and lifts his auction paddle.

“Ten thousand.”

“I know you aren’t going to let my own husband win the pleasure of my company.”  Another bid comes on quickly, and Richard doesn’t attempt to bid again after that.  When Catherine goes for 20 thousand, not the biggest of the night but not the lowest by a long shot, she blows Richard a kiss and throws an exaggerated wink at the gentleman who wins her, and she sashays off the stage.

“And last but certainly not least, the esteemed Dr. Jackson Avery.  Double board certified in ENT, that’s ears nose and throats for you newbies, and reconstructive surgery.  He is a member of the board at Grey Sloan Memorial in Seattle Washington and head of his department, a voting member of the Harper Avery Foundation and the son of our beautiful host Ms. Catherine Avery.”

The cheers for Jackson are considerably more than there had been for any Dr that came before.  The fact that besides being an Avery, he is young, successful and beautiful probably has something to do with it.  And beautiful he is.  But tonight, that doesn’t cut it.  With the combination of the chip on his shoulder for having to be up there at all, his considerable charm that he’s trying to ooze past the irritation of his situation and the tight formfitting cut of his suit, Jackson is down right hot.  I hear one woman refer to him as edible, and I can’t say that I blame them. 

The auctioneer starts the bidding at 2 thousand and it rises quickly from there.  10 thousand, 20 thousand, 30, 35.  Along with the fast calls of the bids also come the not so quiet comments about what they could do with him for those few hours they win.  Or do to him.  And then 2 of the more aggressive women whisper yell about pooling their money and sharing him, because wouldn’t he love to be spread out between them playing doctor.  And that’s what settles it.  The whole premise of me coming to this thing was to protect him from the vultures and gold diggers wasn’t it?

“One Hundred thousand dollars.” Before I have a chance to think about it, I’m standing with my auction paddle raised in the air.  Every head in the room turns to look at me, and I try to give my best Trauma Goddess face to the women gathered, projecting an aura that says bid against me at your peril.  And I pray that no one else bids against me because I just blew my entire load.  If someone else bids they’ll win, because I can’t go a penny higher.

But they don’t.  The auctioneer gives his final countdown “Going once, going twice, SOLD! To the women in the red dress.” And then it’s over, and I’ve won Jackson.  And spent almost my entire savings account doing it.  Don’t think about that.  What’s money for if not to give it to a good cause, right?  Oh God Oh God. 

I ignore all the angry looks from the women around me and turn my attention back to the stage.  Jackson looks flabbergasted and his response gives me a fierce burst of pride.  That’s right ladies, I won.  That I can render him speechless after so long as friends is a heady feeling indeed.  I see Richard and Catherine trying to get my attention, but instead I angle my body towards the auction attendant who is making their way over to me.  He explains to me that there’s some paperwork to sign, forms for the tax deduction and such and I follow him over to where they are handling all of this.  One of the things they try to give me is the contact information and activity preference/suggestions for the Doc I just bought.  I’m going to decline it, but on second thought go ahead and accept the paper.  I might as well do this right.  I made sure to bring my checkbook with me and send a mental thanks to Catherine for warning me about the auction part, even if she neglected to mention she would be auctioning off her son.  I hand over the check but ask that they don’t process it until Tuesday or so.  I’ll need a few days to get my assets moved around.  “Of course, madam, that is quite common.”  Seeing all the millionaires stuffed into the room I highly doubt that, but it was nice of him to say so.

Jackson entered my peripheral vision several minutes ago but keeps being waylaid on his way to me by hellos and congratulations.  There was never any doubt that he’d bring in the most money, but I think the way it happened was maybe not what they were expecting.  Just the thought of it takes away my panic and replaces it with sass.  The frustrated look on his face makes me smile and I finish signing the paperwork. 

At last he’s made a break for it and comes striding over me to.

“What the hell April. Stop.” He gently grabs me by the arm and turns me to face him head on.  “You didn’t have to do that.  Thank you, but it wasn’t necessary.  Here, let me pay for it.” He pulls out his wallet and attempts to hand me an American Express card.  It makes me mad that I’m having an existential crisis over the amount of money I just spent, and he can put it on a limitless credit card with batting an eye.  Doesn’t he see what this means to me? And anyways, I’ve had enough of men telling me what I can and can’t do in my life. I put my hands up in front of me in an attempt to ward him away.

“Too Late!  It’s done.  The check is in their hands. And I know I didn’t have to do it.  I wanted to.  I heard what the cougars were saying about what they’d do to you and my baser instincts took over.  I just ask if you get any cool pro bono cases you let me operate with you.”  I don’t know why talking to him about this makes me nervous, but it does.  I reach out and re-button his suit jacket that he’d undone in frustration on his walk over to me and run my hands down his jacket again to smooth any wrinkles.

“April Kepner, you were jealous.”

“I was not!  I was just protecting your honor!”  The cocky little smirk on his face is making me want to squirm.

“Ok, maybe it bothered me.  A little.  But I was only doing what you asked me to do when you invited me for tonight.  Protect you from the gold diggers.”

“I wouldn’t have done it if I thought you were going to blow your entire savings in the process.”

“Just be quiet.  I was happy to do it, it’s for a good cause.  Besides.  The look on those bitches faces?  Worth every penny.”

Jackson reaches up and grabs my face in both of his hands then leans down and presses a firm kiss to my forehead.  “You, April Kepner, continuously amaze me.  Thank you for tonight.  Come on let’s go dance.”

\--

Jackson –

I still can’t wrap my mind around what just happened.  April is one of the frugalist people I’ve ever met.  She does her own laundry, only buys coffee occasionally and brings her lunch to work more often then she pays for the cafeteria.  That’s probably why she had 100 grand sitting around to make that outrageous bid.   As a board member I know what she makes, approximately at least.  And I made sure when we offered her her last contract that we paid off her school loans, but it never occurred to me that she was saving that diligently. 

I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on in my life when I saw her staring down the other bidders.  She couldn’t have staked her claim any louder if she’d peed on me to mark her territory.  And oh god do I want her to mark her territory.  This is the way it’s supposed to be.  By my side during the day, and in my bed all night. 

As I twirl her around the dance floor, she is radiating self-confidence.  Long gone is the timid mouse she used to be, but I relish the opportunities I get to see it outside of an operating room setting.  Every man who sees her wants her and every woman that sees that hates her.  Even my mother has noticed it.  She’s been dropping side comments about it since we first got here.

“Do you notice anything different about April tonight Jackson?  She is blooming.  She looks free in a way she hasn’t in years, doesn’t she?”

I can’t seem to stop touching her.  The night is almost over, and we’ve either been dancing or had our heads together at our table since she won me at the auction.  My arm has either been at her back or on her leg, or she’s pulled her chair so close to me that we’re sitting thigh to thigh.  A few times she’s even put her head on my shoulder.  All of the dance requests have stopped, and even my mother and Richard have made themselves scarce.  In a room with hundreds of people, there is just the two of us.  April isn’t wasted, but she’s had her fair share of champagne, and it’s made her beautifully flushed and relaxed.  I’ve started switching her glass out for water every other sip and she either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t’ care enough to call me on it.  Besides, she won’t thank me if she has to take a 5-hour plane ride hung over tomorrow. 

“Stop looking at me like that.”

I start at her words.  “Excuse me?”

“When you look at me like that, it makes things pool in my belly that I shouldn’t be feeling right now.  So, stop looking at me like that.”

Desire zings through me hot and fast.  Her voice was low and seductive, and I could see her eyes roll into her head thru her closed lids when she says it.

“And how am I looking at you?” I reach over and rub my fingers over her brow, pushing the hair behind her ear then running my fingers through her hair.  She leans into me practically purring, eyes rolled up and closed again, and it’s taking all my self-control not to pull her into my lap.  I can see her pulse speed up thru the thin paleness of her neck.

“Like you’re picturing a dozen different ways to devour me whole and can’t decide which one to try first.”

“More like a hundred, but you were close. And I wouldn’t take you whole.  I’d eat you piece by piece.  Slowly, taking my time. Savoring every bite.”  She moans out, low and distinct, and I am instantly hard.  If just me talking about it gets this sort of reaction out of her, I wonder what sound she’d make when I finally have my mouth on her.

“Do we need to stay for anything else tonight?  I’m getting pretty tired.”  She looks me straight in the eyes when she says it, and from any other woman that would be a proposition.  But this is April. 

“Nope.  Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes please.”  Her voice is heavy with want and need.  Her skin is still flushed, but from desire instead of alcohol now.  That.  That definitely sounded like an offer. Holding her hand, I pull her to her feet, then wrap her hand around my arm again.  My mother must have been watching for us, because it takes me only seconds to find her in the crowd.  I nod my head in the direction of the exit to show her that we’re are leaving, and she smiles wide and knowing.  I scowl at her, which only makes her laugh openly and point us out to Richard.  Richard is more composed then my mother, acknowledging our leaving with an only a nod and solute. 

We take the first town car in the line. 

“Doesn’t this belong to someone else?”  I shrug. 

“The driver will come right back.  If his patrons are ready to leave before he gets back, they’ll take another, just like us.  It’s common practice.”

I help April into the car then tell the driver the address.  All the nerve endings in my body are firing in rapid sequence, and I can feel the tension singing from April as well.  I scoot close to her and put my arm around her, and she rests her hand on my leg.  Not high enough to be considered inappropriate, but high enough that my cock is aching for her to close the distance.

It’s not a long drive, but the silence in the back of the car is soaked in sexual tension.  Until it isn’t.  I can feel it as it starts to lessen.  Her breathing slows and her body relaxes next to me.  When I look down, April is sound asleep curled into my side.  

Dammit. 

“April?  Apppriiill?”

I should have stopped her drinking an hour ago.  I guess she wasn’t lying when she said she was tired.  I take a look at my watch and see that it’s already after 1am.  I had no idea it had gotten that late already.  The only reaction I get out of her is her trying to burry herself into my side more.

Dammit.  I try to wake her again when we reach the building, but she’s out like a light.  When the doorman sees her, he smiles, and I can’t help but echo him.  It may be damn inconvenient for my libido, but she does look pretty adorable.  I hand my keys over to the doorman and ask him to come up with us, then scoop April into my arms.  My chest and abs scream in protest, but it’s not so bad that I have to put her down.  The doorman comes up the elevator with us and opens my door. 

“Come on in with me for a second and I’ll take care of you.  Our door is down the hall, 2nd door on the right.”  He quickly heads down the hallway to push open the door for me again, then steps back out into the living room.  I lay her down on her bed, then grab my wallet and head out to tip the doorman.

 

I can’t just leave her in her dress, can I?  No.   It’s a beautiful dress.  My mother would skin me alive if she found out I let April sleep in it.  I throw my suit jacket into my room, then take off my tie as well.  On the way back into her room I pull my shirt out from my pants.  She’s in almost the exact spot I left her in.  I bend over and take off her shoes, then lean up and whisper in her ear.

“April sweetheart, sit up for just a minute.”

“Do I have to?”  The whine in her voice makes me chuckle.  “Yes you do.  Doctors orders.  You don’t want to ruin this beautiful dress.”

“It is beautiful.  Your mother has excellent taste.”

“You make it beautiful, but you still don’t want to sleep it in.”

“You sweet talker you.”  You voice is like and airy, and she’s just barely slurring her words.  She stands up and turns her back to me all without ever opening her eyes.

“You’ll just use any excuse to get me out of this dress.  Unzip me.”

If there is a God, he must hate me, because this is torture.  I push her hair out of the way over one of her shoulders, then lean down to place a gentle kiss in between her shoulder blades.  With one little swipe of my tongue, I pull away and start to unzip her dress. She lets it drop to the ground, steps out of it, then bends over to pick it up.   

Holy Mother of God.  Her lingerie, and that’s what it is, not that normal spanx stuff I’ve seen the girls wear.  Her lingerie is black as night.  Against her pale skin it makes her look translucent.  It’s a strappy lacy corset that hooks up the front, ending just below her hips.  The lace is patterned in flowers and goes all the way up to the cups of the bra top, and the cups are see thru besides the lace.   It has garters connected to sheer stockings with black tops.  She’s wearing the tiniest thong that’s top is covered by the bottom of the corset. 

“Do you like it?”

“More than I’ve ever liked anything ever in my life.”  She giggles and looks down at herself, still holding her dress.

“Your mother helped pick it out.”

“Remind me to send her a thank you note.  And don’t talk about my mother.”  I can’t breathe I want her so bad.  I’m afraid if I so much as twitch a muscle I’m going to pounce on her.

“Hang this up for me, I’m exhausted.”  Hang this up?!?!  How am I supposed to do something as mundane as put the dress away when she’s standing there looking like this!?  But that was the reason I woke her up to being with isn’t it. 

I grab her dress with one hand, but then wrap my arm around her waist and pull her to me.  I kiss her with everything I have.  With tongue and teeth, I try to steal her oxygen.  I kiss her so deep I want her to feel it in her belly button.  I pull her bottom lip into my mouth and suck on it before I let her go and she stumbles backwards onto the bed.

I am high on need.  I head to the closet so fast I almost trip myself looking for the special hanger I know the dress had to come on.  I am going to make her cum so many times tonight her legs are going to turn to water.

“God what you do to me April.  I’m going to show you just what you do to me.” There!  The hanger.  I shove the stupid dress into the closet, start on my buttons as I turn back towards her and stop dead on my feet.  April is curled up in the bed, once again asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They'll be a couple of shorter chapters coming swiftly after this one. Sorry it took me a little longer than normal.


	15. Not in Boston Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson and April head home from the gala.

Jackson –

It’s the smell of the coffee that wakes me up.  I didn’t fall asleep till much too late.  The fact that April was asleep in the next room over was as much of a hindrance to my sleep as it was a boon to it.  I’m laying in bed still on my stomach, sheet low on my waist when I hear the door open.  I peek my eyes open just an infinitesimal amount and see April sneaking in.  Any hopes that she’s coming in to pick up where we left off last night are dashed when I smell the coffee cup in her hand.  She doesn’t say a word, but stands there for a minute staring down at me.  I feel her hand on me lightly, barely even touching.  She runs her fingers from the bottom of my neck down my spine to where the sheet starts, and then she leaves the room, shutting the door lightly behind me.  My entire body erupts in goosebumps at her touch. 

Groaning in emotional and sexual frustration, I sit up and reach for my phone.  It’s already 10am, which means we need to get a move on.  My coffee is perfect of course, just the way I like it.  I debate about whether I have the time to take care of my morning problem, but I don’t.  It would suck to wrap my own hand around my cock when April is flittering around somewhere in my home anyways.

15 minutes later I’m dressed, packed, and heading out into the living room with my empty coffee cup in one hand and my duffel bag in the other. 

“Thank you so much again Catherine.  I had such a good time.”

“Honey child there’s no need to thank me!  It is a pleasure having you here with us.  Jackson is such an old stick in the mud.  It’s nice to have another woman around the place.  As a matter of fact, make sure you let me know the next time your contract is up at Grey Sloan.  Mass Gen could use a surgeon of your caliber.”

“Mother, are you really trying to poach one of our surgeons?”

“Jackson, good morning.  Come give your mother a kiss.”  I rinse my mug out in the sink then head over to where April and my mom are sitting at the kitchen table, each with a cup of coffee in front of them.  I lean down and kiss my mothers cheek, then do the same to April.  She smiles but says nothing about it. 

“That’s how the Harper Avery Foundation became what it is today.  By my recognizing talent and bringing it to me.”  Just then Richard comes into the room, dragging his suitcase behind him and pocketing his phone.

“Richard?  I thought you were staying behind for a few days.”

“Change of plans.  That was UNOS on the phone.  They finally have a Kidney for Mrs. Viners.  We’re going to stop by North Dakota and pick it up on our way thru.” Richard looks around the room and when he doesn’t get a response fast enough for his liking he says “Snap to it kids.  Chop Chop.  I’ve got a kidney to go get.”  My mother gets up from the table and walks over to Richard.  I have to avert my gaze when she starts to rub up on him.

“Richard honey.  Can’t someone else handle this?  We were supposed to have a few days together.” 

“I know sweetheart.  But we’ve been waiting for this kidney for over a year now.  I really want to be the one to do this.”

“Well then let me give you a little something for the road.”

“AND on that note!!!  Mother, it’s been great seeing you.  I’ll call you tonight.  Apes, let’s get out of here before they make you wish you were blind and deaf.”  I give my mother a hug and another kiss on her cheek, then grab my bag and Aprils suitcase and head out the front door.  I hear April giving her farewells to my mother, then see her grab a second suitcase I didn’t notice before. 

“Well see you at the car Richard.”

There’s another town car waiting out front, because my mother doesn’t understand the concept of ordering an Uber.  I let April get in first, then settle myself next to her.  Not as close as we were yesterday, but there’s no tension or awkwardness either. 

“A whole extra suitcase going home huh?  Catherine sure talked you into a lot of extras.” 

“It was fun.  I don’t do that very often.  But still, I blame it on the champagne.  I blame a lot of things on the bubbly.”  Is she talking about last night?  Is that her way of saying she regrets it?

“I wouldn’t change it though.  I had an amazing weekend Jackson.  Thank you for bringing me.” 

“You heard my mother.  It was our pleasure. It was _my_ pleasure. Everything is better when you’re with me.”  I grab her hand and kiss it, then keep a hold of it and place it on my lap.

“We should probably talk about what happened last night” she says.

“We should.  I..”  We hear the trunk pop and the sound of luggage being loaded, then the door opens and Richard comes in. 

“Soon.” She says, then asks Richard about his transplant.

 

\--

When we get to North Dakota, we decide to go with Webber to do the kidney retrieval.  It’s a small rural hospital and we normally send at least 2 doctors anyways.  Just today with will be 3 attending's, 2 of which are hospital owners, instead of an attending and a resident.     

April has the soul of a surgeon, and the brain of an administrator.  We went in thru the emergency room and introduced ourselves, looking for an escort to the operating floor and April decided to stay behind and accept a tour of their ER and pit.  By the time Webber and I were back downstairs an hour and half later, she had a trail of lackeys following her around taking notes. 

“You mark my words.” Webber says.  “One day Trauma centers all over the world will be following the Kepner Method.”

“Kepner, you’ve got 5 minutes, wrap it up.  Get their contact information, we’ll bring them out to spend a day or two with you.  We’ll meet you at the car.”

I follow Webber out of the building, smiling with pride at the sounds of adoration coming from the department behind us.

“Sounds like Kepners made a fan.”

“April makes fans everywhere she goes.  It’s part of her charm.  At first you can’t stand her, then you can’t imagine your life without her.”

“Is that right?”  Yea yea Webber, I’m in love with April.  Aren’t they all tired of rubbing that in my face by now?

“How’d you like the way the ER ran the weeks April was away with the ETRG?  Miss her at all?”

“Ok, you’ve made your point.  You know your mother has gotten it into her head that April should move to Boston.  We’re not going to let that happen now are we son?”

“Hey guys!  How was the kidney retrieval?”

“It went well.  Now we have to book it back to Seattle.  I’ve let them know we’re on our way.  They’ll get her up to pre-op as soon as we hit the runway.  I see you made some friends while we were busy?”

“Did you know even though this isn’t listed as a trauma center it’s the only hospital in an hour’s drive in any direction? 

“Tell me more about it”

Just then her phone rings, and I realize I haven’t seen her on it all weekend. 

“Guys, I better take this before we hit the plane again.”

“Of course, don’t mind us.”

April puts her phone to her ear and angles her body away from us some.  Its not like she can get any privacy in a 5ft space, but whatever.

“Hey Matthew. “  We can’t hear his side of the conversation, and I don’t know if I’m disappointed or relived.

“We’re in North Dakota now.  Stopped to do an organ retrieval for a kidney transplant.  Yea I’ll still be home tonight.  Hold on.”  She puts her phone against her chest and looks back at us.

“Richard, do you want any help with the transplant?  I’m not sure who’s on call this weekend but we don’t have a lot of surgical staff at the hospital on Sunday afternoons.”  Knowing she’s trying to make plans with What’s his face feels like I’ve just been knifed.

“You should go see Matthew, I’m sure he misses you.  I’ll stay with Webber.”  She gives me a searching look.  “You sure?”

“Yea, I’m sure.  Go see Matthew.”

She starts at my use of his real name, but brings the phone back to her ear.

“Jackson is going to do the transplant with Webber so I’m free when I get home.  No, I’ll come over after I drop my stuff off.  You really want to go to church?  I don’t know Matthew.  We’ll see how I feel this evening.  I’ll see you in a few hours.”

It’s quiet in the car after that.  The relaxed atmosphere has been replaced with something thicker.  And when we hit the plane, I pretend to sleep the entire rest of the way home.


	16. The on-call room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April needs a nap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut warning **

April – 

We’ve been home from Boston for over a week.  It’s been a pretty intense week at the hospital too.  Jackson is back on a full-time surgery rotation and so I see less of him throughout the hallways during the day, and I miss being with him every day like we were last weekend.  I haven’t had the chance to talk to him about Matthew yet either.  That weekend I just didn’t want to think about it.  How do I tell everyone?  “Oh, by the way, I broke up with my fiancée and broke his heart to go on a 4 day date with Jackson.”  But now it’s all I can think about.  Matthew told me that he’d put in for a transfer so that he’s covering another area, so I don’t need to worry about seeing him on a near daily basis.  I feel bad, but not as bad as I’d feel in a few years’ time if I decided to spend the rest of my life with him.  I don’t believe in divorce.  When I get married, it’s only going to be the once.  I’m just sorry that it happened this way.  And I’m so tired of being afraid and wasting time.  Life is ticking on without me.

 

I’m exhausted.  The day care called Owen and said that Leo was sick, so I said I’d cover for him. After all, lord knows he’s done it for me enough over the past few months.  It was right at the beginning of his shift though, so I’ve been at the hospital going on 20 hours now. It’s 2 am and I have to be back on call at 6, so I head in search of an on-call room.  Only, it’s 2 am.  And I’m not the only doctor who’s had this idea.  Every on-call room is already being slept in, or _slept_ in.  People really need to learn to lock the door if they’re going to get it on in the hospital.  I’m down to the last on call room before I have to give up and take the couch in the attending’s lounge when I push the door open.  Both beds are taken.  Great.  But on a double take, the top bunk is taken by Jackson. 

He’s lying on his back staring up at the ceiling.  Why is he even here?  He got off hours ago.  I knew he was having problems sleeping.  I’m going to make sure to ask him about that tomorrow.   He was fine last weekend. Or at least I thought he was.  I start to back out when he calls my name, without ever looking over at the door.  It makes me smile.  It’s like we have esp. or something.

“Jackson.  Shhhhh, go back to sleep.  I’ll just go to the lounge.”  Jackson sits up and starts to scoot over back towards the wall.

“Come on.” Patting he spot now open next to him, “there’s room for both of us.”

I hesitate for only an instant before I push my shoes off.  I debate about taking off my scrub top, but I hate sleeping in my scrubs, and I’m not on call at the moment so I don’t need to worry about running out in a hurry. I pull my scrub top off and put it on top of my shoes.  I have my tank top on still anyways.  It’s not like I’m indecent. 

There’s only one pillow on the bed, and when Jackson tries to give it to me, I push it back in the middle.

“We can share, I won’t bite.”  He mumbles something that sounds an awful lot like “that’s a disappointment.”

My body is getting all tingly and my pulse is starting to speed.  What feels like little bursts of adrenaline are jumping through my nervous system and I’m suddenly jittery instead of tired.  I lay down next to him, closer than I should be and try to will myself back to the state of exhaustion.  I settle in next to him, laying on my side facing away.  Jackson is back in the same position I found him in, on his back, hands linked on his stomach, probably still staring up at the ceiling.  Only now he is pressed into the wall and is probably incredibly uncomfortable. 

I try to just lay there and go to sleep.  I desperately need sleep.  But the tension between us is singing.

“Jackson, why aren’t you at home?” I whisper.  When he doesn’t answer I’m afraid that he hasn’t heard me, but then I feel him shrug behind me.

I roll over so that I’m facing him now, pulling my arms in close to my chest.  “Jackson” I whisper. I can’t be this close to him and see him this discontent.  I reach my hand over and lay it flat on his chest.  He takes my hand and brings it to his lips, kissing it gently on my palm, then brings it back to his chest.

“I can’t sleep at home.”  See!  I knew he was having trouble sleeping.  He needs someone to talk to.  If he won’t or can’t, talk to me, then maybe I could talk him into seeing that psychiatrist again.

“Talk to me Jackson.  Please?”

“GLASSES” he holler’s.  It scares the bejeezus out of me and I almost fall out of the bed.

“Huh huh what huh?” I hear coming from the bunk under us.  I can feel him jerking and scrambling and I cover my mouth to hide my giggles. 

“OUT!”  There is no denying Jackson when he uses that tone of voice.  He may have spent his life trying to get out of his families shadow, but he is an Avery through and through.  He expects absolute obedience when he says jump, and rarely is he disappointed.  I lay there with both hands covering my mouth and listen to Schmitt grumble not quite under his breath while he gathers his lab coat and leaves.  Shutting the door harder than it needed to be, we are left alone.

Still looking up at the ceiling he reaches over and grabs my hand again, putting it back on his chest.  My giggles die out instantly.

“When I first got home, I felt relieved to be back at my own apartment.”  I thought I’d have to fight to get him to open up to me.  But things have changed between us lately.  Or maybe they’re getting back to the way they used to be before life got in between us.  Whatever it is I’m thankful for it. 

“That apartment doesn’t have any strong memories of you in it.  It has no memories of us and our life and our family.  We were never together in that apartment and being there helped me to put distance between what was real and what wasn’t.  I know in my mind that we were never married.  It’s not like I only remember the coma dream.  Anymore anyways.  Parts of it are even starting to fade.  And for the most part, I’m able to push the coma stuff to the back of my mind.  To ignore it and try to forget it.” 

Jackson rolls over towards me, closing what little distance we had between us and keeping my hand in his, pressed to his chest.  I like the feel of my hands there.  I can feel him speaking, the rumble of it vibrating in his chest cavity.  His voice is deeper too, whether it’s the intimacy of the conversation or the fact that we’re still whispering in the middle of the night even though we’re alone now.  But looking into his eyes does something to me low in my gut.  Against my own volition my breathing speeds up I lean into his words.  I know in my head that I shouldn’t be here with him like this.  We haven’t been alone since Boston, haven’t had a chance to talk about everything yet.  Not to mention that everybody thinks I’m engaged to another man.  But even though I know it’s wrong, I know just as strongly that this is where I need to be.  Wild horses couldn’t pull me away.

“But in every reality, there is, you are loud and vivacious. And on just this side of crazy. And you take up so much space in my life.  And now when I get home, it’s quiet and still, and I’m lonely.  I’m so desperately lonely.”

The ache in his voice is breaking something inside of me.  I want to pull him to me and never let him go.

He reaches up one hand and pushes my hair behind my ear, then runs his fingers through my hair, slowly and repeatedly.  My eyes close and I relish the feel of it. 

“And so, I fill my time with surgery and paperwork.  You know I’ve started running again, twice a day most days instead of once.  Spending more time with my mom, which she loves.  I’ve even offered to babysit for Mer and Callie once or twice.  And when the silence of my apartment becomes too loud, I come here and hope that there is someone that I can help.  And since I’m being honest, I hope that I’ll get an extra glance of your smile.  That I’ll get to listen to you yell at some poor intern who messed with your kingdom.”

I feel like I need to say something.  Apologize maybe?  Thank him?  Tell him that I relish every peek of him I get around the hospital too.  Tell him that I’m worried about him and ask him what I can do to make it better.   That there is an open world full of possibilities between us.  But before I get the courage to open my mouth, he speaks again.

 “But if you don’t mind?  With you here, next to me like this? I think I’ll be able to get some sleep now.”

He yawns so wide I’m surprised his jaw doesn’t unhinge and wraps his arm around my waist, snuggling in just a tiny bit closer.  And then, before I can even contemplate what’s just happened, he’s asleep.

He is so beautiful. So incredibly beautiful.  And he looks so peaceful like this.  I don’t know how to process all the information that was just given to me.  All I know is that he is breaking my heart into a thousand tiny pieces.  What am I supposed to do with this information? And if someone were to come in here right now?  This is not how best friends are supposed to sleep.  So close that we are breathing each other’s air.  So close that it would barely take any effort at all to lean forward and kiss him.  I know Mer and Alex had their fair share of sleep overs, but I doubt her panties were this wet after they finished chit-chatting.  Because let’s be honest here.  That was the sexiest thing I have ever heard.  No man has ever spoken like that to me before.  It’s not even what he said.  What he said was sad.  And heart wrenching.  It wasn’t meant to be sexy.  But the way he looked at me, and the way he touched me when he said it, turned my blood to fire.  And how miserable must he be?  To live with this, this disconnect in his life all day every day.  Do I have the power to free him from his prison?

I wiggle my top hand out from in between our bodies, and gently rub it over his head the way he was doing to me.  As he sinks deeper into sleep, his arm gets heavier on my waist and he pushes his leg in between my own.  I feel the stress of the day, and of the burden that he is carrying around with him settle onto my shoulders and start to drift off to sleep too.

 

 

Jackson –

I hate waking up like this.  I dream about her almost every night, but I thought I’d gotten past the point where the dreams carried over into waking up.  It makes it harder when I forget she’s not really here.  Still, I hesitate to open my eyes, unwilling to end the fantasy since it’s already started. I can feel her in my arms, smell her shampoo in my nose.  It’s different than what I remember.  And it’s that that makes me open my eyes.

Her mass of red hair is curling around us, her leg wrapped up around my upper leg.  My own leg is wedged in between hers and I can feel her heat on my thigh.  My hard on is pressed up against her center.

I flash back to last night, and the things I told her in the dark that I wouldn’t have said in the daylight.  And instead of scaring her off, she pulled me tight.  I have no idea what time it is, but that was the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.  I can’t resist pulling her closer to me and relish in the little noise that comes out of her mouth. 

“I love you” I whisper, pushing her hair out of her face.   And to my total astonishment, I get a breathy “I love you too.”  She’s still asleep, it was barely even a whisper.  Just an automatic response.

I lean forward to kiss her, just intending for it to be a peck.  A thank you for the comfort.  But she opens her mouth and closes it again around my top lip and sucks.  And then she is kissing me for real.  Her hand is spread out as wide as it will go and it’s pressed against the back of my head, pulling me towards her.  I rub my hands up and down her arms and back, trying touch every inch of her skin that I can.  This isn’t going to work I decide.  It’s too hard to kiss laying on our sides like this so I roll her over so that she’s on her back and settle myself between her legs.  She immediately wraps her legs around mine and rubs herself on me like a cat.  Her hands are trying to push up under my scrub top, so I sit up on my knees just long enough to yank my shirt over my head and toss it to the ground.   Her tank top quickly follows and then we’re pressed together chest to chest.

“Jackson” she moans out, and that just spurs me on.  I kiss down her neck and suck on her collar bone.  When she reaches down and grabs my ass, I thrust into her clothed crotch “Yessssss” she groans out and I pop one of her breasts out of her bra and suck it into my mouth.  I’m rutting against her like a teenaged boy and it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever felt.  I reach down between us and find the strings to her scrub bottoms, ripping them open and edging them down her hips.  I rub my fingers over the outside of her panties rubbing hard circles over her clit and sucking her other nipple into my mouth.  She starts to tremble underneath me and keens out in a needy voice, “Please Jackson, touch me.”

I put my hand inside her panties and rub my fingers up and down her slit.  She’s going to need to change scrubs by the time I’m done with her.  She’s so wet it’s already dripping down her thighs and ass.  She’s going to cum quick, I can feel it, and I grab her mouth with mine and plunge two fingers into her core.  I feel her body clench then give around me.  I keep kissing her all the way thru it, slowing my pace with my fingers then removing them completely.  I plant kisses along her throat and chest, moving my way down to her belly button, when she puts both of her hands on my shoulders and pulls.

“Stop.”  I immediately freeze.

“Stop Jackson wait.  I can’t do this.”  Of course, she can’t.  She’s engaged.  What the fuck is wrong with you Jackson?!? 

I climb off of her like she’s on fire and skip all of the rings on the ladder getting down.  Grabbing my shirt and shoving it over my head, I shove my feet into my shoes.

“Jackson no wait.  That’s not what I meant.  Come back please.  Talk to me.”  But I’m already out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of the first chapters I wrote. It's gone thru a lot of changes as my plot veered off course, but the confessions of Jackson remained the same in every version.
> 
> On a side note, there's a video of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper singing shallow at one of her concerts. Well there's lots of them. But there's one from like a side shot that is longer than the others, minutes or so, and you get a straight on view of Bradley watching Lady Gaga sing. And I listened to that song over and over finishing this chapter up. I know they're not a couple or anything, but I want a man to look at me the way Bradley was staring at Gaga. And so when I picture Jackson and April laying on that top bunk, both needing to say so much more than they do and both too afraid to to do, I picture Jackson staring at April the way Bradley is staring at Gaga. 
> 
> **One more side note. I've been married for 14 years. My husband claims that those looks are reserved for falling in love and I've already used up my allotted amount ;)


	17. The Wedding / No Weddings

April – 

 

I’m leaning up against my locker in the attending’s lounge, the coolness of the metal soothing on my forehead.  I’ve been trying to hunt down Jackson since this morning but he’s evading me like I’ve got the plague.  Maybe our esp. works backwards and every time he senses me coming to takes off in the other direction.  He's not answering his phone either.

It’s been a over week now since I broke up with Matthew.  I need to start calling and un-making the arrangements.  It’s far enough out that I should be ok.  But I’m lost.  I’m stuck in this limbo land.  I don’t want to go back but I’m not sure how to go forward from here.  And I can't freaking find Jackson!!  One step at a time, I guess.  

I get up and pull my wedding book out of my locker and sit down on the couch with it in my lap.  I need to pull out my list of phone numbers to start calling.

Arizona walks in and sees me sitting here and comes over to join me. 

“Ooooh” she coos “Wedding plans!  Tell me all about it.”

I hand over the wedding book and start to talk about our plans.  It doesn’t matter now, but she doesn’t know that.

Just then Jackson walks in and stops dead.  He takes one look at us on the couch and the wedding book between us and rockets into motion again.  Before I have a chance to say anything, he resumes his walk to his locker, taking off his lab coat and grabbing his book bag.  He doesn’t even change out of his scrubs, and he hates wearing his scrubs out of the hospital. 

“Let me guess.  You want real butterflies to be released as you say I do.  Maybe give away mints that say, “Mint to be”.  He sounds cold.  Anguished. 

I look at him with an expression of utter bewilderment on my face.  “How? How did you know that Jackson?  I don’t think I’ve told you any wedding details.”  I know I haven’t talked to him about anything wedding related.  By unspoken agreement that was forbidden topic of conversation.  That should have been my first clue.  He’s my person.  You should be able to talk about the most important day of your life to your person. 

He gives me a look that sears me to my soul, “I’m going home.  Goodnight.”  Then pushes out the door of the lounge without a backwards glance. 

“What in the world was that about?” Arizona asks

Butterflies and mints?  How would he know about butterflies and mints? 

Arizona gets a page, and with a “Let’s get together this weekend to go over it some more” she is gone.  I sit there for another few minutes before I get up and grab my clothes out of my locker.  I shove my book into my bag, hike my bag onto my shoulder, and go in search of Bailey.

“Chief, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go.”

Bailey looks at her watch and then back at my face. “You’ve got 2 hours to go still Kepner.”

I shake my head and shift from foot to foot.  I have to get out of here. “I know and I’m sorry.  But I’m in no position to be operating on other people.  I HAVE to go.”

She gives me a searching look, then nods.  “Ok then.  I’ll let Hunt know.  Do you need anything Kepner?  You alright?”

No, I’m not alright, but there’s nothing that she can help me with. “You’re already doing it.  Thanks Chief.”

I sit in my car for a few minutes in the parking lot, but I know what I have to do.

When I knock on Jackson’s door, he takes a few minutes to answer it.  I know he’s here, I saw his car parked in the lot.  I try the door handle and find it locked.  I bang on his door again, a little too hard this time.

“Jackson, I know you’re in there.” Nothing.  “Open the damn door Jackson or I’ll just open it myself.” I get ready to start flipping through my key ring, but the door swings open immediately.  He must have been standing just on the other side of it.  He’s got a beer in his hand and I see another 2 open and sitting on the living room table.  He only had an hour head start on me and he’s already 3 beers in.  I take off my jacket and drop my keys onto the table as he walks silently into the kitchen and grabs another beer out of the fridge.  He hands it to me without saying a word.  We clink our bottles together and I take a long draw from the bottle.  He flops onto the couch, like he just doesn’t give a damn, and I sit down next to him, angling my body in his direction, putting my bottle on the table.

“Jackson I can’t do this anymore.  The way we are doing this causes me pain.”  Silence.  His expression is unreadable.

“Tell me Jackson.  Please?  Tell me everything.” 

“We were married.” He says, emotionless. Then Silence.  I already knew this.

“Tell me more.”  The silence is eating away at my nerves.  I can’t take him looking at me like that. Like I’m everything and nothing all at once.  Finally, he sits up, and reaches up to cup my face, pushing my hair behind my ear.  My eyes close of their own violation and I lean my head into his hand.  Soaking in his touch.   

“We were like gravity.  Undeniable.  Fated.  You were engaged to the Muppet.  Seems he taunts me in every reality there is.” He scowls momentarily and then continues his story. 

“We’d been together, you and I, but then we broke up, because you’re an idiot who doesn’t realize when someone is in love with you.  And in fairness I’m an idiot who doesn’t know how to say it.”

My eyes close again at his words and I think back on the last few weeks, months, hell years of our lives.  So much time wasted. 

“When I think about my time in the coma, and let’s be honest it’s all I think about, I think about all the times we messed up our lives when we reacted first and thought later.  We let our mouths react before our hearts and brains could get it together.”  And yet, he did that again just this morning.

He shakes his head and sighs, then leans back against the couch again.

“And so, after a few months of dating Alter boy, you got engaged.  I could have stopped it, but I didn’t.  Because I was angry and sad.  I was dating somebody else and wasn’t going to go to the wedding.  But the morning of the wedding you came to the hospital to hunt down bridesmaids. You looked ridiculous, hair in curlers and with stress and anger pulling you tight.  It was beautiful.” His smile is real and light.  Like he can see is perfectly in his mind’s eye. 

“You told me I needed to be there.  That I was your best friend no matter what, and that you couldn’t go through with it unless I was ok with it. So, I went.

You didn’t get married in a church.  You were getting married in this big barn out in the middle of nowhere.  You had little boxes with live butterflies, and containers filled with mints with ‘Mint to be’ on the labels.  When your father walked you down the aisle, you were angelic.  Not touching the ground as you floated to the front."

His speech is slow and deliberate, like he's considering every word before he says it.  Or maybe more like he's reading it off of a replay reel in his mind.  

"The minister, he didn’t ask if anybody objected.  He asked if we all agreed to help support you in your marriage.  And I thought about what Sloan told me before he slipped into his coma.  Did I ever tell you that?  The last thing he said to me?”

I shake my head. “No, I don’t think you ever did.”

“He asked me to promise him something.  If you love someone, he said, you tell them.  Even if you’re scared that it’s not the right thing. Even if you’re scared that it will cause problems.  Even if you’re scared it will burn your life to the ground. You say it, and you say it loud.  And then you go from there…”

The minister asked if we would support you in your marriage.  And you both looked out over the wedding guests, and you locked eyes with me.  And I thought this is it.  This is my last chance. So, I stood up and said it loud and I said it proud.  I love you April Kepner.  I love everything about you.  Even things I hate, I love.  And I think you love me too.”

My heart is beating so hard I’m afraid I may pass out.  He finishes the last of his beer and puts the empty bottle back down on the table.  My whole body is shaking. I don’t know what to do. Licking my lips I start to ask “What...?”

“You ran down the aisle to me and I caught you in my arms.  Then we left.  Hand in Hand we ran out of that barn and never looked back.  The next day we got married, just the 2 of us, at Lake Tahoe.  When we got back to Grey Sloan, we kept it a secret for a while.  You called it our secret marriage bubble.”

He looks so happy, and so sad at the same time.  Heartsick.  And it’s making me sick sick to see him like this.

“Finally, I told you that we had to tell.  I was so proud to have you as my wife I wanted to shout it from the rooftop.  I still am.”

But I’m not his wife and I never have been.  A thought occurs to me. “We eloped?” He nods affirmative.  “Without telling anyone?” Another nod.  “How did your mother take it?”

His laugh eases some of the pain lodged in my chest. “About as well as you could expect.  But she loves you.  In every world there is.  The previous year she kept trying to get you laid without knowing that you were already in my bed.”

“So, we had sex before we got married?”  That’s less of a question, and more of a statement needing confirmation.  That April must have been braver than me.

“That’s a story for another day I think Apes.”

The silence envelopes us again, but not as strained as it was before.  Sometime during the story, we started holding hands, and as normal his thumb is running across my palm.  Both of us lost to our own thoughts.

“You’d better go.” He says, catching me off guard.

“What? Why?” I ask.

He shakes his head and looks up at the ceiling.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was sending a quick prayer to God. 

“Why am I always reminding you that you are getting married April?”

Taking a deep breath, I ask him “Aren’t you tired of being an idiot?”  He looks at me like I’m crazy, and it makes me angry.

“I’m not getting married. I ended it with Matthew over a week ago.”

He still looks confused.

“What?”

“Jackson you idiot. I’m in love with you!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was again one of my first chapters. I never expected it to end up so far down in my document. When I first started out I thought I would alternate each chapter with a memory from the show. The story would be primarily from Jackson's pov, with just little bits of Aprils pov thrown in to make it interesting. But I now understand when a writer says that a character wanted to do something specific. I used to think that was kind of ridiculous. You are the writer, you control the story. But my April wanted to be heard. And so the course of my story changed. 
> 
> The first paragraph has changed several times as I eased it in and then back out and then back into the story, but everything else has stayed true to form.


	18. Body and Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for confessions and their consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that it took me so long to get this out. I have several chapters after this one already completed, but really struggled with how I wanted this to go.
> 
> ****Smut warning! 
> 
> Also, this chapter took a different format than any of the other chapters have before it. I probably won't repeat it after this one either, but to get what I wanted across, I needed to change how we interacted with the characters.

April –

The dumbfounded look on his face is both entertaining and irritating. He's supposed to be the person who knows me better than anyone.  Certainly he saw this coming?  But of course he didn't.  We've spent so much time ignoring our own desires to ensure what we thought was the other persons happiness that now we can't see any path that leads to our own.

“You broke up with Matthew?”

“How did you ever become a surgeon when you are so slow to grasp things?  Yes.  I broke up with Matthew.  The night before we went to Boston actually.  He said, well he said a lot of things, but he said I had to choose between you or him.  And I realized that I choose you.  All day every day, I’d always choose you.”  I shrug, trying to show the insignificance of anyone actually thinking that I could ever pick anyone over Jackson.  I've proven that fact to way more people than Matthew over the last decade or so.

He’s still looking at me like I just told him I’ve been abducted and probed.  Ok.  Maybe this is one of those times where actions speak louder than words.  After all, I haven’t been friends with Meredith and Cristina for all of these years without picking a little something up along the way.

 

Jackson –

She says it all like it’s the simplest thing in the world.  Like it’s a fact well known to man and not like she’s just blown my world apart.  I know I’m staring at her stupidly, but I’m still gathering my mind around how to react.  ‘Huh?’ doesn’t quite seem appropriate, but then neither does ‘Are you sure?’ or ‘Thank You Jesus.’

April puts both of her hands onto her knees and pushes herself to standing.  A burst of adrenaline shoots thru my system so fast I start to get dizzy with fear that she’s going to drop this bombshell on me and then leave.

“April!  Don’t leave!!”

She starts to talk to me, but never breaks her stride or looks backs at me.

“I know you said that this apartment was your refuge because it didn’t have any strong memories of me in it.  But I think it’s time we change that, don’t you?”

As she’s talking and walking, she pulls her shirt off over her head and drops it on the floor beside her.  She pushes each shoe off with the other foot.  Then she’s unbuttoning her jeans as she’s walking into my bedroom.  “Are you coming?” she says as she flips on the light switch to my room.

Holy shit.  April is stripping in my bedroom.  I skip walking thru the living room and just jump over the back of the couch.  By the time I get into the bedroom she was already pushing her pants down past her knees and using her feet to kick them off. She looks fucking beautiful and sinful as hell, but I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to take her clothes off myself to be honest.

“Is this ok?”  She asked me a little shyly and a little coyly. “Christ” I mumble to myself. This is the weirdest case of déjà vu I've ever had.   

“April ummmm. But unless I am sadly mistaken you are still a virgin April.”

She walks towards me in nothing, but her panties and bra, and I stand there frozen. This moment is so surreal.  At least when we were in Boston, I had the aid and cover of alcohol.  Here like this, I have no excuse for what is happening right now.

“Well I think it's time we fix that too” she says and she reaches up on her tiptoes and gives me a kiss .

 

April  –

I feel so powerful.  The look of bewildered desire on his face only fuels me on.  The thought that he might turn me down never crossed my mind.  I always panicked when the thought of having sex with Matthew came up, but with Jackson I just feel empowered.  Sexy. I want him like I have never wanted anything in my life. When I kiss him gently with my lips closed, I hear him groan so violently I feel it in my toes.   I step back quickly, before he has a chance to pull me to him.  I remember a conversation I overhead once between Mark Sloan and Alex once way back when we were still residents and decide to see what kind of reaction I can get out of him. 

“Does it bother you that I’m a virgin?”  I try to look both seductive and girly, reaching up to play with my hair.  Jackson shakes his head like he’s trying to get rid of a horde of flies.  The mighty Jackson Avery, brought to silence by a little ole virgin I think.  But I can't laugh.  Can't break character yet.  “No!  No, why would it virgin me that you’re a bother?”  I’m trying so hard not to giggle.  Why did I wait so long for this?  He can’t even talk right.

“I’ve heard it be said that some men don’t like the idea of sleeping with virgins.  Too messy, too emotional.  But then I’ve also heard it said that for some guys, it really turns them on.”  Jackson swallows forcefully, trying to clear his throat.  I bite my lower lip, running it thru my teeth, then continue.

“I’ve heard that it can make a man feel powerful to be the first, to be the _only_ man to piece a woman’s flesh.  He feels like a King.  To be the first mmmmmmm” I can’t finish my sentence, because Jackson pounces on me like a lion and all thoughts of teasing go out of my brain.

He kisses me like he needs my oxygen to live.  He wraps one arm around my back and one arm down around my ass and a lifts me up off the ground, deepening the kiss as he does so.  I wrap my legs around his waist automatically and we fit perfectly, like we’ve been doing this for years. And if I get my way, we’ll be doing it for the rest of our lives.

Jackson –

April is trying to kill me.  That’s the only explanation I can come up with for what’s happening right now.  Someone has put a hit out on my life, and April is going to kill me via seduction.  I don’t know how I ever believed that lame little coma dream, because the April in my bedroom right now is so much better than that April could have ever been.  I feel like I’m both hyperventilating and unable to breathe simultaneously.  Or maybe I am breathing, but the oxygen isn’t getting where it’s supposed to be because all of the blood in my body has rushed to my dick? All I know is I'm slightly dizzy, and I’m so hard its painful.

Her bra is elegant and lacy, baby blue against her ice pale flesh, and her panties are dark blue cotton string bikinis.  And I think I only notice them because I make a mental note to replace them tomorrow as I prepare rip them from her flesh. 

I almost came in my pants listening to her talk about what a man feels like to fuck a virgin, and that’s when I realized I was still fully clothes when she was down to her lace.  If she wants to poke the bear, this bear is going to eat her whole.

 

April –

I never knew I could feel like this.  The only thing that is holding my soul together is my skin and that feels like it is being peeled off upside down and backwards.

I expect Jackson to drop me onto the bed and so it’s a shock when he climbs up on it with me still wrapped around him.  He walks on his knees to the center of his bed then gently lowers me on to it.  Without removing his lips from my skin, he breaks the kiss when it becomes apparent that we either need to breathe or we’ll pass out before we even get started.  His lips trail a wet path from my face down my neck and onto my collar bones. 

I’m mewing and withering around on the bed like a cat in heat and I just don’t care.  Somehow, we’ve changed positions and he’s wrapped around me instead of the other way around.  He straddles me with one leg on either side of my thighs, and the friction of his jeans against my bare and mostly bare skin is exquisite.   

“April.”  His tone his firm and serious, and it brings me back from the brink just enough to bring his face into focus.

“April, are you sure?”

“Do you love me?”  When I ask it, I realize he’s never really said it out loud.  To me at least.  But then he answers without a moment’s hesitation.

“More than life itself.”

I reach out and cup his face with my hands.  I hadn’t realized what a tactile person I was, but when it comes to Jackson, his touch calms me and centers me, and I know I do the same for him.  It’s been that way for years and I just never realized what it meant before. I see his eyes close and feel him take a calming breath when I lay my hands on him.

“I’m already yours.” 

Jackson kisses me again, but different this time.  How many different kisses can one person have?  It’s sweet and slow and deep, and I feel it from the back of my throat all the way down to my clit.  He crawls off of the bed and stands beside it, looking at me the entire time.  The intimacy of his eye contact makes me shiver.  He pulls his shirt off over the back of his head in that incredibly sexy way that only men do, then pops the buttons of his jeans and slides them down his legs.  Then comes his boxer briefs, and suddenly Jackson is gloriously naked in front of me.  I sit up and reach behind to undo my bra, but Jackson stops me.

“No.  Don’t.   I want to do it.  You already robbed me of the opportunity to strip you proper.”  As he’s crawling back on the bed, I’m mesmerized by the way his body moves.  He looks like a panther stalking his prey and I for one am ready to be caught. Seeing his muscles flex and twist from this angle does something to my insides. He is such a gloriously built creature, and the fact that he's mine turns me on to a whole new level. God outdid himself when he made Jackson.

The anticipation is building inside of me to the point where I’m panting like an animal in heat, and I guess I kind of am.   He straddles me again and reaches behind me to take off my bra.  With his mouth on my shoulder, he moves the strap with his teeth then sucks on my shoulder blade, lightly biting with his teeth.  I’m supporting myself up on my hands now, head fallen back so that my neck presents a straight line up to the ceiling.  The more he puts his mouth on me but doesn’t touch my core the more my body turns to jello.  I don't think I truly knew the definition of desire until just this moment. My arms start to shake, and I have to fall back onto my elbows, pushing more of my breasts up and in the path of his mouth.  I’ve made it to second base once or twice in my life, but nothing like this, this morning excluded, and I’m afraid I’m going to cum just from his hands and mouth on my breasts.  He grazes his teeth over one of my nipples, pulling but not hurting, then sucks as much as he can into is mouth and lavishes it with his lips and tongue until I’m a moaning mess in his hands.  Then he repeats the process with the other one.  Finally, FINALLY he moves aside enough to pull my panties down and tosses them to the side of the room.  Instead of settling himself between my legs though he’s off to the side of me with his body angled towards my head and his head down between my legs.  He puts a hand on each of my thighs and spreads me to his satisfaction, then licks a stripe from the top of my pussy where those most sensitive nerves are all the way to my bottom.

“jjjaacckkssooonn” I push out his name through a nervous system that is firing off too many synapses at once.  Needing something to ground me, I reach out and wrap my hand around his cock.  It’s as big as I imagined, but my imagination could never compare to real life.

He sucks in a sharp breath, and it sends lightening bolts shooting outwards from my clit.

“Don’t April.  I won’t be able to last if you touch me like that.”  He says it without ever moving his mouth away from my pussy, and the sensation of his lips moving against _my_ lips like that, and the sound vibrations of his lust deepened voice against my most sensitive area almost send me over the edge right there.

“Ditto.” I manage to squeak out.  “Fuck the foreplay Jackson, I need you inside of me now.”

Jackson wraps his mouth around my clit completely and sucks, sending me arching off the bed and firmer into his mouth.  Then 2 fingers enter me and just like that I am cumming all over his hand and face.  Before I have time to register what’s happening, he’s flipped himself around and is pulling my hips up with one hand under my ass, the other holding his cock and easing it inside of me.  He goes slow but smooth and all the way in on one push.  I feel him break the barrier, but I’m still riding out the first orgasm, and the pain combined with the pleasure of having him at last between my legs and inside of me where he belongs sends me over the edge again.  I've become a blubbering twitching blob of goo and Jackson is milking me for all I can give him. He lets go of himself and stills, leaning forward and supporting himself with his now free hand.  I wrap my legs around his and lift my face searching for his lips. 

“Do it.doitdoitdoitdoitdoitdoit.”  I’m chanting it like a prayer against his face, but I’m long past the point where I have any control over my bodily functions, and apparently that includes my mouth.

“Your wish is my command my lady.” He says with a wicked grin on his face, and I can’t help the exuberant laughter that escapes from my mouth.  He sets a pace that has my muscles clenching around him and my breasts bouncing against our touching chests.   I wrap my legs tighter around him once again and use my hands to try to merge his body with mine.  “I won’t last long.” He says, and I have enough of my thought process back to wonder why it really matters at this point.  He already owns me body and soul, what else does he have to prove?

“I love you” I whisper against his face and I feel his body clench on top and inside of me.  He jerks and twitches inside and around me for a few more thrusts, harder and sharper than before, then goes still, eyes closed, forehead pressed against my own.  His breathing is harsh and ragged, and being with him like this is everything and more than I could have ever dreamt of. 

That God has a plan for everyone, I have no doubt.  And I have no doubt that Jackson Avery is mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I openly and happily admit one of the reasons that it took me so long to get this chapter out is that I discovered MerLex fan fiction, and I got distracted lol. If anyone likes that ship, I put out a couple of little drabbles throughout the last week. A future chapter from this story is actually partially posted in that story as a matter of fact. Thanks for waiting me out and I hope that it was worth the wait!


	19. Besties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April and Jackson compare themselves to the only other pair of male/female besties they know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A altered version of this chapter appears in https://archiveofourown.org/works/17834690/chapters/42082931

April –

I’m already sore in places I’ve never been sore in before, and it’s an ache I earned every minute of.  Every time I move for the next few days and I feel that burn and pressure, I’m going to know its from giving myself wholly to Jackson.  I wonder if I look different, then snort at myself for such a ridiculous thought.  It’s not like I have it tattooed on my forehead now, ‘Not a virgin.’  It’s a good thing Cristina isn’t here anymore though I think, because she had like a sixth sense about this shit.  She’d be able to tell with just one look at me.

Lying in bed curled up next to Jackson, I say what’s been on my mind for a while now. I think we’re way past the point of trying to hedge our thoughts. And that thought makes me so incredibly happy.

“I always thought _you_ thought of us as like a Mer and Alex thing.” The rubbing on my back stops momentarily and I see him turn to look at me.

“That’s ridiculous April. No friendship alive is an Alex and Mer thing except Alex and Mer.” They are exceptionally close. Uncomfortably close. Derek once said that it was cheaper to have Alex and Jo build their house on his and Mer’s property then the cost of gas for Alex and Meredith to go back and forth between each other. It’s well known they hang out in the bathroom when one is in the shower or bath and are always climbing into the others bed when their spouses are stuck at the hospital. Meredith claims she can’t sleep alone anymore. Karev says that he only does it for Mer, but Jo says that’s bullshit. I think her exact quote was that Mer’s made Alex a cuddle whore. I know for a fact that when Mer and Jo had to go to that conference last year Alex spent the whole week sleeping with either Bailey or Ellis.

“Do you remember when Grey was pregnant with Ellis, and Shepherd walked into the on-call room to find Karev and Grey cuddling?”

The memory makes me laugh out loud. “How could I forget? He took a picture and sent it all over the hospital.”

Derek opened the on-call room looking for his wife only to find her spooned up against her best friend. She and Alex were both sound asleep, only Alex had both of his arms stretched out around her with one under her tank top so that he could feel the baby move. Instead of losing his mind because his wife was wrapped in the arms of another man, he took a picture of it and sent a mass message out so that the guys could take it out of Karev on how soft he’s become. And boy did they. For weeks afterwards they kept asking him if he wanted to rub their bellies and replacing his blue scrubs with the pink scrubs from the gyny squad. The more the women tried to stand up for him and say it was sweet, the worse the harassment became. I thought he was going to punch someone before it finally died down.  But Alex is a very hands on uncle.  He even delivered Ellis for goodness sake.  He likes to say that the only kid he didn't have a hand in bringing into their family was Bailey, and even then, he did all the newborn testing.  So I guess it was kinda normal for them.  Kinda

“April, when you saw that picture, what did you think?”

“I thought they looked adorable. And I thought that Jo and Alex better get on the baby making stat. obviously, it isn’t only women that get baby fever.”

“True on all counts. Now what would people say if they saw us like that, even if you were already married and pregnant with his child?”

“They would have assumed we were having an affair. Hell, they’d probably think the baby was yours. If it was Matthew that walked in, he probably would have killed you and asked for forgiveness later.”

“Exactly. Derek went and found Jo so that she could see it up close. _We_ are _NOT_ Mer and Karev.”

“Well, since I am currently naked in your bed, I guess I can agree with that.”

“To be fair, I bet there’s been a fair share of nakedness between the twisted two-some. After all, they lived together off and on for the better part of a decade plus. I just doubt there was mind blowing sex happening as well.  But then again, we’ve all heard the stories about the inappropriate sex whenever she and Shepherd broke up. Remind me to ask Karev about that next time I see him. Watching his eye balls pop out would be worth the potential punch.” Jackson is right. As perverse as it may seem from the outside sometimes, there are none others like Alex and Meredith. They're worse even than she and Cristina used to be. Derek may be Mer's husband, but Alex is certainly her soul mate.

I plan on my husband and soul mate residing in the same person, however.  I feel bad for the way things played out with Matthew.  I’m sad that I hurt him the way that I did.  But I don’t feel any regret for what’s happened with Jackson, and that’s how I know that I’ve done the right thing.  I was always hesitant before, and now I don’t have a doubt in the world that I’m meant to be with the man I’m currently laying against.

Jackson's voice interrupts my ruminating, but I didn’t catch what he said. 

“hhhm?”  Jackson chuckles and flips us over so that he is on top of me, both of his arms on either side of my head.

“I asked if you were sore?”

“A little yea.  But it’s the best sore I’ve ever felt.”  Jackson starts nipping and kissing down my neck again, slowly this time verses the intensity of our first encounter.  Or would that be considered the second?  Nah, first works for me.

“You know the best way to get around that right?” 

My toes are curling in on themselves and my internal tension rackets up by 100 points.

"Please, do tell me oh wise one."

I'm going to have hickeys all over my throat and chest tomorrow.

“I’ve heard that practice makes perfect.  Get your body acclimated and all that.” 

Without my consent my legs are already spreading to accommodate him and my hips are rotating up and down slowly, seeking out the friction that I so desperately need.

“Then I guess we better get on that then.”


	20. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Morning After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to keep them as in character as I can, but in their current more adult personalities and not their 5 years ago immature and less sure of themselves personalities. So Jackson has a whole life and relationship to pull experiences and advice from, and April has her post Trauma training/Army training see's what she wants and does it personality.

Jackson –

 

I come to consciousness slowly and reluctantly sure that last night was just some terrible wonderful dream.  But then the smell of coffee and bacon? Hits my nose and I feel a pair of lips against mine.

“Not a dream after all” I say quietly, but I know she heard me anyways.

“Or you know, the very best sort of dream.” She replies just as softly.

I reach my hands up to touch her and am disgruntled, to say the least, to find my progress hindered by clothes.  Opening my eyes, I see her leaning over me, fully dressed.  Her hair is partially damp and being held up off of her neck by a clip on the top of her head.  She’s got on yesterday’s jeans but is wearing an old button down of mine tucked neatly inside of them.  It’s obviously still much too big for her, but the light purple looks beautiful against her skin and I think she looks gorgeous.  Except for the fact that she’s wearing clothes at all that is.

“What the hell April?” I say as I grab her by the hips and plop her on top of me.  “I wasn’t planning on allowing you to put clothes back on for at least a week!”  She makes a satisfying grunt as she lands on top of me.

“Hmmm, allow me huh?  Well I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m on shift in less than an hour.”

“No.  Call in sick.”

“I can’t call in sick!  I’ve missed enough work the last few months thanks to you.  After the way I skipped out last night to follow your pouty ass home, I’ll be lucky if Bailey doesn’t fire me the minute she sees me.”

“April, I own the hospital.  I think I can ensure your job security.”

“And you know very well that I can’t use the fact that I’m in love with the boss as an excuse as to why I should skip work to stay in bed and make love all day.”  Mmmm, make love all day.  Boy do I like the sounds of that.

“Well as said boss, don’t you think it should be up to me to make that decision?”

“Do you want me to tell Bailey that you called yourself the boss?”

“Please Don’t!”  Just the thought of Baileys wrath if she heard me say I’m her boss is enough to send shutters thru me.

“Hmm mmm, that’s what I thought.  Ok.  Let me up.  There’s bacon in the oven, and if you let me go right now I’ll have just enough time to scramble some eggs before I leave.  By the way, we need to stock your fridge.  No more living off of take out and hospital food.”  It’s such an April thing to say that I can’t stop the grin that breaks out on my face.  She climbs off of my lap, and I’m man enough to admit it gives me an immense sense of pleasure to see she’s not moving at her normal exuberance levels.  There’s a definite slowness to her movements this morning and the blame can be laid squarely at my feet.  Smug may be the what I'm feeling right now.  Definitely Smug.

I debate following her out of the bedroom still naked but decide that will be more of a torment to myself than to April.  Once she makes her mind up about something, nothing gets in her way.  As last night can attest to.  And April has obviously made her mind up to go to work today.  Any other time, and I would be afraid that she is freaking and running, but a person talking about stocking my fridge doesn’t sound like the sort of person who’s in the beginnings of an existential crisis.  No, this is the opposite of a spiraling April.  This is April at her best.  Goal within reach, success in her grasp. 

I throw on my new favorite lounge pants, the kind that are tight at the ankles but don’t look like sweats.  I have a feeling I’m going to need to run after this anyways, then head out into the main room.  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her cooking in my kitchen, but it’s the first time she’s been mine while doing it, and it makes me want to call Bailey myself and tell her to fuck off, then take April on the kitchen counter.  Next time.

I decide to give it one more go.

“Marry me.  Today.  Right now.  They’ll _you’ll_ own the hospital too.  And since you own the hospital, you’ll be able to spend as many days as you want laying in bed with me.  Or on the counters.  Or on the shower.  Rude to take a shower without me by the way.”  That gets a chuckle out of her but nothing more than that. 

“Breakfast is ready.  Your coffee is probably cool enough to drink.  Get in here ‘cause I gotta go.”

I come up behind her and wrap myself around her, putting my chin on her shoulder and stilling her movements.

“Are you ok?” I ask her gently.  She turns in my arms to face me and reaches up to cup my face.

“So, you want to elope huh?”

“It was a thought.”

“Didn’t you tell me just last night that we’ve already done that once before?”

“And look how well that worked out last time!”

“And your mother?  What was her response again?”

“Oh my God my mother.”  I know the panicked expression that must have broken out all over my body, but I can't help it.  She’s going to kill me.  How do I keep getting myself into this situation?  Maybe April is trying to get me killed after all.

April’s laugh is full throated and free when she pats me on the cheek in sympathy then takes a cup of coffee off of the counter and places it in my hand.  She takes a look at her watch, utters a quick ‘shit’ then shoves a bite of eggs into her mouth.

“Relax Jackson, she already knows.”

I immediately start to cough and gag on the sip of coffee I just attempted to take and try to shoot April my best ‘what the fuck have you done' look.

“What do you mean she already knows?!?!  What did you do April?  Send out a mass text that said ‘Jackson popped my cherry last night’.”

“Crude Jackson, very crude.  No you moron.  She knows I’m in love with you.  She’s known longer than I have.  She’s only been trying to get you into my pants for years now.  We were just too ignorant to catch on.  Apparently, she’d been pushing all those other guys onto me hoping that you’d man up and conquer me yourself or whatever.  I told her I broke up with Matthew the night we got to Boston.  She knows.”

“Out of all the people in the world you could have chosen to confide in you have to choose my mother April?”  She gives me a pitying look while she shoves the last of her toast into her mouth and starts to rinse out her coffee cup.

“I didn’t CHOOSE to confide in her Jackson.  Well I did but.  You’ll have noticed that your mother is a somewhat observant individual yes?”  I nod my affirmation grudgingly and she goes on.

“And she’s had lots of time to observe us, hasn’t she?  Then there’s the fact that she shows up at your bedside ready to order the hospital to battle in your defense only to be told by Webber that I am your power of attorney and not her.  Thanks for that by the way.  A little warning for the both of us would have been nice.  And then there was all that time we spent together lounging at your bedside, drinking champagne and getting mani’s and pedi’s, waiting for your lazy ass to wake up from your nap.”  Her tone is getting sharper and sharper, and she must have been spending a hell of a lot of time with my mother lately, because the sudden resemblance is uncanny. 

She closes her eyes and takes a settling breath, then opens them again and takes another look at her watch.

“Besides, don’t tell me that there isn’t someone that you’ve been confiding in, both before and after the accident huh?”

“ummmmmm”

“So.  About today.  We keep this to ourselves for now.  I still haven’t even told my parents, and I have to spend part of the day trying to get wedding refunds for He Who Shall Not Be Named.  I’m assuming that’s how you’d like me to refer to him from now on?  Good.  Can I come back over after work tonight?”

I nod my head yes and follow her as she wanders thru the apartment collecting her items.   I feel like I’ve unleashed a too large tornado into a much too small space.

“Go ahead and talk to Callie, I’m sure she’ll be able to read it on me the minute she see’s me coming anyways.  She has Cristina’s sixth sense about these things.  Remember you have to be at work at 10.  I’ll pack a bag to bring over tonight if that’s ok with you.”  She stops in front of me, reaches on her tip toes to give me a kiss, shoots me a “see you at work.” And is gone.

What the fuck just happened?


	21. The Morning After Cont.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title says it all I think

Jackson –

I know the second I walk into the attending lounge that it was a good thing I went for my run this morning.  Callie is sitting there like the Queen of Sheba, obviously waiting for me to arrive.  I’m going to need all of my wits about me this morning.

“Arizona and I hooked up last night.”  Okay, not what I was expecting.  But this is good.  It means that she isn’t here to talk to me about April.  And that’s a good thing.  Because I haven’t yet decided how to approach the conversation.  I feel like I’ve been playing a weird game of cat and mouse since I came out of the coma, and the mouse has finally been caught.  But was I the cat, or was I the mouse?  And shouldn’t I know that?

“And she mentioned that you were acting really weird last night.  Like weirder than your new normal weird.”

“New Normal Weird?  Nice.  Thanks.”  I head towards my locker and throw yesterdays scrubs that I took home with me into the sterilization hamper then pull out a fresh pair to put on.

“I had a rough day yesterday, you know how it is.”

“Yea, I didn’t think anything about it.  Pushed it out of my mind completely as a matter of fact.  I had better things to concentrate on as you can imagine.  And then I see Kepner trying to sneak into the hospital this morning.  She was running late.  Isn’t that unusual of her?  She’s never late.  If she has a late night at the hospital, she would rather sleep here then risk being late in the morning.  But there she was, late.”

I guess I’ve made my mind up about whether or not to talk to her about it.  Callie has taken the decision out of my hands.

“Late.” She says again. “Wearing what I’m almost 100 percent sure was your shirt and glowing like a roman candle.  Before I even had a chance to open my mouth, not even so much as a good morning, she accused me of being a sex physic and told me that _I_ was _your_ problem to deal with and then practically ran in the opposite direction.  Imagine my bemusement.  I wish Mark were here for this.  He’d LOVE the idea of me being a sex psychic.”

Ok, so _April_ took the decision out of my hands.  I’m starting to feel that smugness from earlier again. 

“Glowing huh?”

“Lit up like a fucking firework.”  I shrug into my white coat and lose the fight to keep the shit eating grin off of my face.

“Well I’ll be damned.  Jackson Avery finally up and grew a pair.”

“Actually, I think we can lay all the credit for this squarely at Aprils feet.  I mean, I did my part when called upon.  But April started it.  Like literally.  One minute we’re sitting on my couch with me telling her to go home to her fiancée, the next minute she’s telling me she doesn’t have a fiancée and is stripping off in my hallway. The whole thing happened so fast I think I still have whiplash.”

“I always knew there was a badass hiding behind the good girl exterior.  Good for her.  What happened with you know who?”

“Gone.  For a while apparently.  Since before we went to Boston at least.” Stethoscope, notebook, phone, pen.  I shut my locker and head over to sit with Callie.

“And?”’

“And what?”

“No sir.  I have not been watching the longing stares and listening to the pining drabble for the last, oh who knows how long, only to miss out on the good stuff.  I am a sex psychic after all.  Spill.  Did you, or did you not do the deed?”  On the one hand, it’s rude to kiss and tell.  On the other hand, April did give me specific instructions to talk to Callie did she not?

“Three times to be exact. When April puts her mind to something, she does it with gusto.”

“April Kepner, virgin no more.”  Callie’s shaking her head like she just can’t believe it.  I’m still wrapping my head around it myself.  “So, what now?”

“That my friend, is an excellent question.  I kinda proposed to her this morning.  Well I did but I didn’t?  I don’t know.”  I rub the heel of my palms into my eyelids and try to gather my thoughts.  I don’t know how April got up earlier than me and was still so perky.

Callie hits me in the arm, a little harder then the situation calls for I think. “No wonder she was running away from you this morning!  God Jackson!  Talk about traumatizing the poor girl.”

“No, it wasn’t like that.  Besides, she didn’t really say no.  She was different this morning.  She was different last night.  I don’t know how to describe it.  Confident?  Sexy as hell that’s for sure.  But it was more than that.”

“You asked her to marry you Jackson?   Really?”

“I made a quip about eloping right then so that we had an excuse to stay in bed all day.”

“And what did she say?”

“That my mother would kill us if we eloped.  I told her, before all the other stuff went down, that that was how we did it in the coma.”

“Well you’re right.  That certainly doesn’t sound like a no.  But she just got out of a relationship.  Don’t you think you’re pushing it a little bit?”

“Me?  I didn’t push this at all.  Shit Callie, she seduced me!  I’d tell you about it, but I don’t want to have to fight you for her.”

“That good huh?”  A groan slips out against my will and Callie whistles.

“Take the most erotic dream you’ve ever had and multiply it by 100.  I thought she was going to kill me.” 

Just then the door pushes open to enter none other than April herself.  We both turn and stare at her and I wonder if it’s possible I conjured her with my desire.

“Oh!  I wasn’t expecting you guys to be in here.  Don’t you have a surgery in like a half hour Jackson?   Good Morning Callie.  Sorry I ran away this morning.  I was running late.  Anyways, I forgot my phone.  I’m assuming from the cocky expressions mirrored on both of your faces you’ve told her. I hate being late.”  I love it when she rambles when she gets nervous.  Callie beats me to saying anything though.

“No April.  _You_ told me with your dirty, dirty walk of shame this morning.”  Callie is beaming and April is blushing the most delicious shade of pink.

“Not to mention the faint outline of hickies now visible with your scrub top on.  If you have a high-necked shirt in your locker, I’d put that on under it if we’re keeping this on the down low for now.”

“Really?”  She turns to look in the mirror. “Damn.  OK then.”  Without any hesitation she tosses her coat onto the couch then pulls off her scrub top, followed by her tank top.  Callie looks from her then to me with a look of incredulity on her face.  April is still in the baby blue bra from yesterday and simply seeing her in scrub bottoms and that stupid bra is making me hard again.  I know I’m grinning like the Cheshire cat, but I can’t seem to wipe the smile from my face today.   She searches thru the pile of folded clothes at the bottom of her locker and pulls out a long-sleeved pink shirt to put on, then picks out a different scub top that has pockets on it and puts that back on top.  I’ve always admired how organized and supplied her locker is.

“I can’t wear the coat that much in the pit anyways.  Easier just to leave it here.”  She transfers all of her items from the pockets of her coat into the pockets of her pants and top, then hangs the coat up in her locker and tosses the old top into the correct bin.

“Anyways, I didn’t get to bring a lunch with me today, for obvious reasons, so come find me when you guys are ready to eat.”  She leans in and gives me a kiss, and it was so unexpected that it takes me a second to respond and not just sit there like a fool.  I bring my hands halfway up, then hover there, not sure what I should be doing with them.  April runs her hand over my head and presses me deeper into her kiss.  I’m so shocked that I’m practically choking on her tongue, hands still hovering inches above her skin.

She gets up and walks to the door like this is an everyday occurrence.  When she’s got the door open, she stops and turns back to us.

“And Callie, there was no shame in my walk this morning.”

Callie’s face speaks volumes.  After several moments of her mouth opening and closing without any sound coming out, she finally finds her voice.

“What the hell has happened to Kepner?”

“I do not know.  But I’ve gotta say, I really really like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we've probably got 4-5 chapters left and then that's all she wrote. Literally ;)


	22. Heart to Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson and April finally have the talk
> 
> *Smut Warning!

April –

This may very well have been the best and worst day of my life.  I’m sore in every single muscle in my body and the memories of how I got this way have ran through my mind in a constant march all day long.  Kissing Jackson in front of Callie like that earlier may have honestly gotten me slightly drunk.  I was really starting to wonder why I waited so long to feel like this.  It’s addicting!  But then I guess that gave me my answer didn’t it.  I had lunch with Mer and Alex instead of Jackson today since his surgery ran long.  Mer asked Alex what was different about me, like I wasn’t there at the table with them, but all Alex did in response was shrug and go back to shoveling food into his mouth. 

That being said, I only got about an hour of sleep last night before I woke up for the final time and have been running all day long on some sort of sex high.  I am definitely crashing now.  I got a message from Jackson saying that he probably won’t be home until around 9 or so, so I went by my place to grab enough stuff to last me for a few days and swung by the store.

I’ve got chicken roasting in the oven, a salad waiting in the fridge and am on my second glass on wine. 

Now what?  I’ve always been better at actions then at words.  It’s one of the main reasons my life has turned out the way it has.  In social situations, when the times came for fight or flight, I always chose flight.   It’s why I like working in a trauma environment so much.  Act first, worry later. 

Well I’ve done my acting.  Now it’s time to worry. 

I called my parents to tell them I’d ended it with Matthew.  They were understandably upset. My dad especially.  They kept asking me what happened.  I debated about just leaving at that we’d decided to go our separate ways but decided it would be the least painful if I get it all out all at once.  After all, they know Jackson.  He’s come home with me to visit before.  My mom sends him cookies every Christmas and Birthday for heaven’s sake.  So, I told them that I realized I was in love with Jackson and couldn’t in good conscious commit myself to another man.  That really set my dad off, but my mom told him to shut it, and then wished me luck.  I wasn’t expecting that. 

I got the majority of the deposits back for the wedding.  I’m going to reimburse him myself for the one thing I wasn’t able to get a refund for.  I was planning on paying him back from my savings, before I remember that I blew most of that on Jackson.  So, I just wrote him a check out of my regular account and told myself no more take out for the rest of the month.  He shouldn’t have to suffer financially on top of everything else I’ve put him thru.

Now all I have left to deal with is Jackson.  And how exactly am I supposed to deal with Jackson?  It was so much easier yesterday when I could just show him what I feel.  But how do I put it into words that don’t make me sound like some marriage crazy psycho.  When he joked about running off to elope this morning, I almost said yes before I realized he was probably just kidding.  But I would.  If he wanted, I would run off with him in a heartbeat.  I just feel like we’ve wasted so much time already.  And dating?  What is the point of dating exactly?  To get to know another person.  I know Jackson better than I know myself. 

Last night I just wanted to get my point across and giving that part of myself to him was the best, and maybe only way I knew of to prove to him that I do love him.  But where do we go from here? 

I realized that I just kind of pushed myself in here without ever taking the time to ask him if this is what he wants.  I needed to end it with Matthew no matter what.  That never would have worked out in the end, even if we did make it down the aisle.  But there’s a good possibility that Jackson isn’t ready to start playing house.  Just because the coma dream is still bothering him so much doesn't mean he automatically wants to be with me for real.  People are in relationships for years before they have these sorts of conversations, and we’re not even in a relationship yet.  Not really.  I feel like I’ve really taken advantage of him and everything he’s been through, and the more I think about it, the worse I feel.

When the oven timer dings, I swallow the rest of my glass of wine and go over to check it.  I’m in the process of filling another glass with water for myself when Jackson comes in the front door.

“Honey, I’m home.” He’s laughing as he says it, and that takes a layer of my fear off of my shoulders.

Jackson comes into the kitchen and wraps his arms around me.  I immediately feel myself go slack against him, releasing tensions I’ve built up the last few hours. He kisses my forehead then pulls back to look at me.

“There she is. There’s my April.”

“I asked you if it was ok if I came over again tonight. Was it not?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.  Look at you.  You're freaking out.  When did the spiraling start?”  He's laughing as he says it, like it's a good thing and not a sign that I'm a super freak.

See, we know each other better than we know ourselves.  “A couple of hours ago.  But I’m ok now, I think.  Just seeing you makes it better.”

“Yea I know the feeling.” He says that quiet, almost to himself then louder “What’s for dinner?  Smells great.  I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoyed coming home to you cooking instead of take out every night.”  He must be referring to the coma dream.  I wish I could think of a better way to refer to that experience.  I feel like it degrades something that was obviously a significant experience for him.  For us really, even if I wasn’t a part of it.  He reaches into the fridge and pulls out a beer, then picks up the wine bottle and offers to pour me another glass.  I really shouldn’t, but maybe it’ll help me loosen my tongue some.  There are some serious issues we do need to talk about tonight.  I just hope it doesn’t loosen it too much.

“Just a little bit.  I’ve already had 2.”  He raises his eyebrow at that but dutifully pours me a half glass full. 

“So Dear, how was your day today?”  He is grinning ear to ear when he says it. 

“Find yourself amusing do you?”

“Maybe.  Or maybe I just really enjoy coming home and finding you here.  And I’m pretty sure I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and have someone tell me I imagined it.”

And just like that he breaks my heart.  One way or the other, everything’s going to be ok. 

“Come here.  Give me a proper kiss.”  He puts his beer on the counter and has reached me in one long stride.  Scooping me up he places me on the counter and eases his way between my knees.  The kiss starts out slow and sensual, but quickly picks up speed.  Before he can take it any further however, the kitchen timer goes off again.

“Let me down babe.  You don’t want the chicken to get dry.”

 “Ugh! You’re killing me April.  No, I guess we can’t have dry chicken now can we.”  He lets go of me but doesn’t step back enough to allow me to get down off of the counter.  I do so anyways and end up sliding down the front of his body as a result.  The moan he let’s loose as I rub up against his hard on is enough to bring back some of my earlier buzz.  When I bend over to get the chicken out of the oven he smacks my ass, and I almost drop the baking dish.  Luckily, he stops being a hindrance and starts helping by bringing plates and silverware out to the table.  I move the chicken onto a plate to carry it into the dining area and grab the salad out of the fridge.  Jackson grabs both of my glasses in one hand and both my wine bottle and his beer bottle in the other, and we’re sitting at the table eating dinner.

 

We chat about nothing for the first half of the meal while we concentrate on eating, then Jackson takes the leap I’ve been dreading all night.

“We didn’t use protection last night.”  As good a place to start as any I suppose.

“I know.”

“I’m clean, in case you were worried.  That was the first time I’ve never not used a condom before.”

That makes me smile.  “I know you’re clean Jackson.  I’m more intimate with your medical history than you are at this point.  Hell, I could probably tell you your blood counts from memory.  I wasn’t worried.”  I need to be honest.  I just need to get it all out, then I’ll pick the pieces up when they fall. 

“And I’m on the pill.  But even if I wasn’t, I would have done it anyways.  If I was going to be with you, I didn’t want anything between us.  And if it is something that you wanted, whether it be 9 months from now or 9 years from now, I would be proud to have your baby.”  I reach for my wine glass only to see it’s empty.  I reach for the bottle instead, and just take a swig from the bottle rather than waste the time pouring it into the glass.

“April.”  His tone isn’t something that I can discern, and it fuels me on.  Better to get it all out then prolong my torture.  I put my hand up to silence him, then power on.

“No Jackson, just wait.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that I just sprung all of this on you.  I showed up at your house uninvited and unexpected and have just, I don’t know, thrown myself at you.  And I’m sorry.  But you looked so damn sad.  And I love you so much.  So desperately much.  I should have told you that the minute you came out of that coma.  Hell, I should have told you that before you ever went into it.  Maybe then it never would have happened at all.  But I love you.  And if you want to date.  Then I want to date.  If you want to elope, then I’m here to tell you I’ve already packed a bag.  And if you think that trying this, trying us, for real, would be too hard for you, then I’m here for that too.  We can forget the last 24 hours ever happened and go back to being best friends.  Well no, I could never forget it happened.  I wouldn’t want to do that.  I can’t think of another scenario that could have been better than last night.  But if you want to leave it at last night as just a pleasant memory, then I can make that happen.”

“APRIL!” The force in his voice catches me off guard and I quickly shut my mouth.

“Are you done?”

“Yes?”  I could probably ramble on for a few more hours truth be told, but now seems like a pretty good time to shut up.

“Good.  Do you think I spent 3 weeks in a coma dreaming about you being my wife because I wanted to be friends?  Or how about the months that have passed since then?  Do you think I dream about you every single fucking night because I was interested in a one-time thing?  I can’t breathe when you’re not near me April, and you’re afraid that I want to have a date a few times a week?”

His breathing is getting pretty heavy now actually, and I get up out of my seat and go and sit in his lap.  His arms immediately wrap around me and he buries his head into the side of my neck, breathing in my sent and hair.

“You could have stopped talking at having my baby.  I can’t wait to see you round and firm with the life that we created together inside of you.  Throw the pills away tonight for as far as I’m concerned.”

My heart is pounding so hard I’m afraid it’s going to beat out of my chest. 

“Really? I mean, you know what happens when you assume.”  I try to exude an air of playfulness instead of that of the panicked insane person I was exuding a minute before.

“Really. In this case, I think it would have been a safe assumption to make.”

Jackson wraps his hand into the hair at the back of my neck and uses it to pull my head back.  He’s rough and a little forceful, but it sends shivers of pleasure tingling up and down my spine.  My breathing is picking up as his is slowing down, and my chest is heaving in his face.  He uses his other hand to move my shirt to the side and licks a clear path from the tip of my shoulder all the way up to my ear, then sucks my earlobe into his mouth between his teeth.  He loosens his hold just enough for me to turn in his lap and straddle him face on, and then he picks me up and carries me to the couch.  I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of seeing how strong he is.  Of bring the beneficiary of that strength.  The sensation of kissing while being held and walking is new, and awesome, and it turns me on something fierce.  I’m impressed with my own coordination to be honest, that I can keep myself even while walking like this.

He lets go of me unexpectedly, and I’m left supporting myself against his torso with just my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips.  And my lips against his of course.  I feel his hands against my ass, and I realize that he’s un buttoning his pants.  That is so freaking hot.  With one shove they’re down around his knees, and Jackson taps my ass with his hand.  I take that as a signal to let him go, and slowly lower my legs to the ground.  When he’s free of me he yanks his shirt up over his head, then uses his legs to pool his pants down around his feet.  Remembering what he said about me taking my own clothes off yesterday, I just stand there watching and admiring the view.  Sure enough, once he’s done with himself, he starts on me, and within seconds I’m naked and straddling him on the couch.

We reach down between us at the same time, and I laugh at his groan when he finds my clit at the same time I wrap my hand around his cock. As I stroke it up and down, a sense of nervousness comes over me.  Yesterday I didn’t know any better.  Today find’s me properly intimidated. 

“Are you up for this?” He asks me with a challenge in his eye.  He knows I never back down from a challenge. 

“Slow, you have to go slow.”  I lift up to swing myself off of him, but he places both hands on my hips and lifts me gently until I am hovering above his cock.

“Not me.  You.  That way you are in control.  Do you think you can handle this?”  There's only one way to find out isn’t there.  I reach between us again to guide him in, and the sensation of his entering is exquisitely painful.  He was right to put me on top, I think.  The sensation of stretching and being filled is twice as pronounced as it was last night.  I’d pick on him about his sex drive and about needing to give a girl a break, but I want it just as bad as he does.  Maybe more.

Once I’m down as far as I can go, I sit there for a minute to take it in.  It’s almost too much to handle.  Almost.  Jackson has a hand on each of my breasts and is alternating between them, licking and sucking.  He finds that already darkened spot on my collar bone and starts to suck again.  I'm going to need to invest in more turtle necks.  After a few seconds to gather my courage I start to rock my hips.

“Sweet Jesus.”  I don’t know if I’m praying to god or thanking him.  Now I know why the bible says sex is a sacrament.  This is such a different feeling from last night, such new sensations.  With every rock of my hips he rubs against the inside of my core and against that magic spot I’ve heard of yet never experienced for myself.  I’m higher like this, and Jackson has to tilt his head back to look up at me.  I love it.  As my muscles begin to re-acclimate themselves to his size, I pick up my pace a little.  The unexpected consequence of that is that it makes my movements sharper, which spurs Jackson on, and soon Jackson's hips are snapping up to meet me. 

The sound of flesh meeting flesh is intoxicating, and before I know it my orgasm it is ripping thru me.  I try to throw my head back, but Jackson wraps his arms around me tight, one hand in my hair urging my mouth to meet his.  Hugging me to his body and down onto his cock, with a few more quick thrusts of his hips, he follows me over the edge. 

I’ve never experienced anything like that before, and my orgasm is quickly followed by a wave of exhaustion.  It’s almost too much to keep myself upright, and I slowly tilt to the side, separating myself from Jackson.  The cool air hits my sweaty body, and I start to get goosebumps, but still the exhaustion pulls by eyelids closed. I hear Jackson chuckling, and I think he says something, but I'm far too gone to catch it.

Jackson scoops me up in his arms and carries me into the bedroom.  Pausing to pull the covers down to the bottom, he places me in what is certainly his side of the bed, then covers me back up again.  With a kiss on the forehead and a whispered I love you, I hear and see no more.


	23. The Idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson and April as they navigate their way thru their new situation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I looked long and hard (and by that I mean I googled for 5 minutes) to try to find April's middle name, but I don't think it was ever mentioned. So for the purposes of this story, I gave her my favorite name. If you know what her middle name is, please tell me so that I can fix it.
> 
> Also, I probably should have broken this up into a few smaller chapters, but I really wanted it to stay together. I'm sorry if the cadence and timing is off because of that.

Jackson –

It’s been over a week since April and I became _Me and April_.  Even though neither of us has actually said anything about it to anyone at the hospital, the whole campus seems to know about it now.

Last week Karev and I went up to the daycare to check on Ellis.  She had another ear infection and Mer was worried that she might need tubes in her ears.  She told Karev she was going to take her to the pediatrician, but as far as Karev is concerned he IS her pediatrician, so he said he’d handle it himself.  Since I’m an ENT, I’d be the one doing the surgery anyways, since there’s no way I’d let them use whatever hack a regular pediatrician would recommend, so we went up to check on her together. 

When we walked into the nursery, I heard them say ‘that’s the one I was telling you about’ before they separated to appear busy.  It doesn’t bother me, not really.  As an Avery, I’m used to being talked about in the hallways.  But if April caught wind of it, she would be upset.  Very upset.  I know she’s already getting a cold shoulder from some of the paramedics.  Them, I can’t control.  But hospital employees on the other hand…

I wave at the teachers and lean in to Alex, still smiling and waving.  “First person that upsets April gets fired.  Pass it along.”  Ellis see’s us and squeals, dropping her toy and running in our direction.

“Consider it already done dude” he says, as he scoops up Ellis into his arms.

“Uncle Alex!  Uncle Avey!” 

“Want to go have some fun kid?  The Uncle A’s wanna show you off around the town.”  I run my fingers over her head and take a look at Alex.

Underneath the obvious pleasure he gets from being around the children, there’s a gleam in his eyes that reminds me that beneath the pediatrician exterior lies a sometimes-violent man who would do almost anything for those few people he considers his family.  I wonder when April joined that side of the line.  And I almost pity the next person who Alex catches talking about her.  Almost. 

I wave to the teachers and tell them we’ll have her back in a little bit.  Alex hands her to me and goes to sign her out as I walk into the hallway.  I hear him telling them that they need to keep their attention on the children and not on mindless hospital gossip, and since half of the kids in here belong to parents or have uncles who also own the hospital, they better make the adjustment fast.

“Uncle Alex is a good guy to have in your corner, isn’t he sweetheart.  Let’s go get a look at those ears huh?  Then we’ll get you some ice cream.   Shhhhh, don’t tell mommy or daddy.  It’ll be our little secret”

 

 

April’s essentially moved into my apartment.  When she told me that she’d only brought enough stuff with her to last another day or so, I told her that that was not going to work for me.  She could pick a place, either hers or mine, and we’d stay there together, but I wasn’t sleeping away from her ever again if I had anything to say about it.  So, since my apartment is bigger, and nicer, and closer to work, she picked my place.  We went over to her apartment the next day and grabbed everything she couldn’t live without, boxing up all of her clothes and stuff and bringing them over to my place.  She still has several months left on her lease, an excuse she was using to delay the wedding to what’s his name come to find out.  I tried to just pay the fee to break it for her, but she wants to keep it for now, even if we just use it for storage.  My place may be bigger, but it wasn’t set up to have two apartments worth of stuff crammed into it.

I haven’t talked to April about it yet, but I’ve already started looking at bigger apartments, or preferably houses to live in. What I really want to do is look into buying property around where Mer and Derek live and have a house built for us.  There is a lot of open land out that way, and both Arizona and Callie live in neighborhoods just a few miles out from there, and Owen and Amelia are even closer than that.  Alex and Jo just finished building their house where the trailer used to be parked.  Mer’s house, in all of its incarnations, has always been the center of our community, and it only makes sense to be close to there.  But April will try to tell me that it is an unnecessary expense.  Excluding her bid at the auction, April is a very tight pursed person, and it’s not really the kind of thing I can do and then just spring on her.  I’m going to have to ease her into it baby step by baby step.

 

“So” I say, lying in bed one night. She’s lying next to me, head on my chest, fingers running over my stomach. “I’ve been thinking about this marriage situation we’ve found ourselves in.”

She turns her face up to look at me, resting her weight on her elbows and on my hips and I try desperately to ignore the fact that she’s now mere inches away from my cock. She is so damn beautiful it takes my breath away. I run my fingers thru her hair, enjoying her obvious pleasure and the slight tangles from our earlier lovemaking.

“And what marriage situation might that be?” She asks.

“The situation in which _I_ am unwilling to wait the months and months it takes to plan a wedding and _You_ are unwilling to run away with me.”

“Hey now! That’s not what I said. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure what I said was I’d be more than willing to elope with you. What I also said however was that your mother would skin us alive if we did so.” I can’t repress the little shudder than runs thru me at the memory of my mother when we eloped in my coma.

“Since you are properly afraid of you mother, as all good sons should be, a regular engagement appears to be all that’s left to us.”

“Hmmmmmmm”

“And you know Jackson, you never really did propose to me anyways. We just jumped into bed under the assumption that we would get married. If anything, _I_ proposed to _You_!”

“Well, be that as it may, I think I have a suitable solution to our problems.”

“Ok, impress me then.”

I admit I’m slightly nervous about this. April has always had very clear ideas about what she envisioned for her wedding, and she’s already thrown quite the wrench into that by marrying an atheist. Hell, she’s screwed it to holy hell by even being in my arms right now.

“I think we should have a party. A huge party with all of our friends and as few of our family as we can get away with.” Her self-deprecating laugh there makes me feel slightly more at ease. “We throw a party, in a week or so, and once everyone is there, we get married.”

“Seriously? Just like that?”

“Just like that. We’ll tell people it’s a party to officially come out of the closet, as it were. An engaged to be engaged sorta thing. I talked to Shepherd” She interrupts me with a high-pitched squeal.

“Derek!?! You told Derek!?!”

“No, not like that. I just asked if it was ok if we used their place to have a party since it’s huge, and it’s where we’ve all always gone to celebrate things anyways. He said yes, of course. I told him I’d have a cleaning crew out first thing the next day. He patted me on the back and said he never doubted it. I think people are really happy for us Apes. They aren’t saying it because we’re not talking about it. But they’re happy we finally came to our senses.”

“I know. Mer gave me a hug out of the blue the other day. And Arizona, oh god Jackson, I almost died. She asked me if you were good, you know, down there, because you look like one of those rare men who would be good down there, and Mark would never agree to mentor anybody who wasn’t.”  April talking to Robbins about my sexual prowess is both horrifying, and yet brings me a sense of intense self-satisfaction.   Damn right I’m good.

“And now, I’m never going to be able to work with Robbins again.  What did you say? 

“Well, she caught me off guard.  And I didn’t want to say anything wrong, so I told her that now she knows the secret to why I always look so happy and you always look so tired.”  I try to fight the smug smile creeping onto my face, but I know it’s a lost cause.  If Robbins could hear the way April screams my name at night, she’d get a better answer.

“That’s not bad.”  I try to play it off.

“And then I told her that if they gave a md in pussy licking you’d be triple board certified.”  

“Jesus April, you didn’t!  When did this happen?”

“Ummmmm, this afternoon?”  April looks like she can’t decide whether to laugh or to cry.   Great.  Just great.  While I can’t deny that it certainly gives my ego a boost, I’m never going to be able to look Robbins in the face again.  And Callie!  Oh my god Callie!  You know Robbins went straight to find Callie after she talked to April.  And Callie is too much like Mark for comfort.  She’s going to wanna trade techniques. 

“An md in pussy licking huh?  You know I have a cleft pallet kid tomorrow?  Twenty bucks says she tries to scrub in with me.  You know she has no filter!”  I rub my hands over my head and try to bring us back to the point.

“Anyways.  As I was saying.  You and Me.  Next weekend.  Gives everyone enough time to cancel any plans they may have already had but not so long that they'll get suspicious.  I know you want to be married by a minister, so we can get that arranged.  We can give your parents a call and tell them that we’re having a party and you really need them to be here.  Tell them that you want to explain to them in person about everything that's going on.  We’ll put them on the jet so that it doesn’t cost them any money.  I’ll pay for their hotel.  I know they’re mad at you, at us, and they're worried about you.  This will give us a chance to make it up to them in person.  And maybe them coming down to watch you get married will prove to them that you know what you are doing.  You can decide if you want your sisters there, and if you do, you can also decide if you want them to fly commercial or rub it in a little and we bring them out on the jet as well.   We can even do the dress and tuxedo if you want.  Just say that you’ll do it.”

“You’ve really put a lot of thought into this haven’t you?”  I reach out to touch her, because everything is better when I touch her, and cradle her face in my palm.

“Only every minute of every day since you took your shirt off in my living room.”  Her little laugh is infectious, and god do I love her.

“I don’t know Jackson.”

“Maybe this will help.” I push myself up to a sitting position with the headboard behind me and reach over into the top drawer of my bedside table.  I pull out the ring box that’s been in there since the day after we had our talk.  I know I should get down on one knee and all that, but I think that naked, in our bed, where all of this really started, is the best way that I could do it.  I hadn’t planned on doing it like this, but it feels right.  It feels like us.  Opening the ring case, I present it to her with no muss, no fuss, just a symbol of my love, from me to her.

“April Elizabeth Kepner, You are my best friend, and the light of my life.  I want you to be my wife, and the mother of my children.  Would you do me the honor and the privilege, of allowing me to become your husband?”

Her reaction is everything I could have asked for and more.  You can tell she honestly had no idea I was going to do this, which I think makes it even better.  The shock on her face is adorable.  I know what Callie meant when she said that April was glowing, because I see it now.  She raises from where she was laying on her belly to sit back on her legs and feet, leaving her gloriously and unabashedly naked with the blanket pooled behind her.  The shocked expression is quickly being replaced with one of pleasure, and happiness is radiating out of her pores. Her smile takes up her whole face.  It takes up her whole body.

She launches herself at me with such force I’m knocked back against the headboard and I drop the ring case somewhere on the bed.

“Yes Yes Yes of course Jackson.  Of course I’ll marry you YES YES YES!”  I wrap my arm around her to settle her against me and kiss her with as much passion as I can put behind it.  When she finally pulls away, she puts both of her hands on my shoulders and says, “Yes Jackson Avery, I will marry you next week.” 

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

 I kiss her again, quick this time, then pick her up from the waist and drop her on the other side of me.  The unexpected movement sends her feet into the air and an explosion of laughter thru out the room.

“Now move so I can find the ring again.”  I can’t get enough of her laugh.  Her skin is flushed all over and the way her hair is falling over her shoulders like that makes me want to lick them.  April is infectious, and I’ve caught the disease.

I finally find the box and pull the lid open again.  I don’t know if she didn’t get a good look at the ring when I held it before, but when I go to pull it out of its box, she gasps in what I hope is surprise and pleasure.  She’s an understated girl, but I wanted every man within a mile to know that that ring was from me, and that she was mine.  It’s a rose gold setting, that I thought would match beautifully with her hair.  The band is encrusted with diamonds, and the center stone is square shaped and just over a carat.  The stone itself is smaller than what I probably would have gone with if I was choosing for just my tastes and not hers, but I’ve been around enough female married surgeons to listen to them talk about problems they’ve had with their rings getting caught on things and ripping thru gloves.  And since this one is at least twice as big as her last, (no pun intended) it’s a problem she’s probably going to have, at least at first.  I was assured though that the band is designed to sit snug and low on her fingers, and we can have it sized when and if necessary. 

When I slip the ring onto her hand, her hands are shaking.  That surprises me, because mine aren’t shaking at all.  I realize that I wasn’t the least bit nervous asking her to marry me.  I guess that’s because I already knew the answer.  After I place the ring on her hand, I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her palm.  Something about her surgeons hands are so lovely to me.

“You are mine.” I tell her.  I know I sound like a caveman, but I don’t particularly care.  I can’t wait to tell the world that she is my wife.

“It’s gorgeous Jackson.  Thank You.  Thank you so much.  It’s too big, it’s too much, but it’s so beautiful.  Thank you.”  She’s holding it up in front of her face and seeing my ring on her finger marking her as mine is the strongest aphrodisiac I could have ever imagined.  I knew she was going to say it was too much and have already made myself a promise not to tell her how much it cost.

I bought a thin chain in the same material as the band itself, long enough to hide under her scrubs and rest between her breasts, over her heart, since I know that’s the way she wore her other ring a lot of the time.  Now that I know more about what was going on in her head during her time with him though, I’m hoping she doesn’t use it that much.  The chain is coiled in the bottom of the ring box, so I pull it’s insert out and pull the chain out as well. 

A thought comes to me, so wicked I have to do it.  I wrap the chain around her neck, then move her hair around to cover it, then pick up the box again.  I put the insert back inside the ring box and put the box down in my lap.

“You are so gorgeous April.  So freaking beautiful.”  I move her hair behind her ears and brace myself for what’s to come.  “Now, I hate to do it, but I’m going to need that ring back now.”  I grab her hand as I say it, as if to pull the ring off, and she yanks it away from me as if I’ve burned her.  She brings her left hand to her chest and covers it protectively with her right. 

“WHAT?!  NO!  Over my dead body can you have it back.  What do you mean you need it back?  I was only kidding when I said it was too much Jackson.  It’s perfect, I love it. You aren’t really going to try to take it away from me, are you?”

I almost tip over from laughter.  Priceless.  I make the give me motion with my hand.

“Give it over.  We can’t throw a surprise wedding if you walk into the pit tomorrow with that on your finger, can we?”  She pulls her hand away from her chest slightly to look at it again, but quickly looks between it and me like she’s debating if I’m going to snatch it from her.

“Ok.  Next weekend, right?  Not this weekend?  That gives us 10 days or so?”  I nod my agreement.

“Fine.  I’ll put it on the chain in the morning.  But first I want to make love with my fiancé, wearing it and only it.”

I could never deny her anything.  And this is a desire I'm more than happy to accommodate.

“Your wish is my command.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've read this thru so many times it's blurring together. It's off, the whole thing is just off, but I don't know how to fix it. I'm sorry. Transition chapters are always so hard. Blame my husband. I was deep into the flow of things with dialogue zipping thru my brain and he turned on the Umbrella Academy. Excellent tv show by the way. NOT conducive to writing #Japril fiction however.


	24. The Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think the title says it all. No muss, no Fuss

Turns out, planning a wedding in 10 days is actually a lot easier than you think it would be when you’re not worried about things like butterflies or flower arrangements.

We ended up telling Mer and Derek what we were up to. They have some experience on throwing a wedding on short notice, (Own and Cristina), and again of having a wedding out of their house (Ditto Owen and Cristina.) Instead of thinking we were crazy like I was afraid they would, they were full on board. Derek pulled Jackson into a hug and offered his services as best man, but we’re not going to have attendants I don’t think. And if we did, I’m sure he’d ask Callie.

Per Jacksons suggestion, we’re going to use the same officiant that I hired to marry Jo and Alex before that all went to hell.   I thought I was going to have to fight to get a minister to perform the ceremony, but Jackson said as long as they weren’t too ‘preachy’ he was fine with having a man, or woman, of God marry us. I really considered having a friend do it, like Bailey did for Callie and Arizona, or Mer for Alex and Jo, but in the end, I really want God to be a part of my wedding.

It wasn’t hard at all to get everyone to agree to go to Mer’s house on Saturday. The problem was stopping people from coming. Mer’s thrown some epic parties over the years, and by the end of the day that we asked the first person if they could make it, we had maintenance workers asking what sort of liquor they should bring. We had to change the word around the surgery floor that is was more a dinner party than an actual party and invitation would be limited to space available. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve told people not to worry about bringing food like we usually do. I was afraid that people would start getting suspicious when I told them it would be catered instead of the pot luck style we usually have, but Callie said it was about time someone realized we were too busy to bring food to parties. Owen and Amelia were worried about finding a babysitter, but we decided that we want all the kids there too. It hadn’t even occurred to me not to have all the kids there actually. I can think of nothing happier then hearing the kids playing while we say our vows.

I thought we’d been caught out about half way through the week. Meredith was asking me if I wanted to go shopping, to buy a new dress for the occasion. Without either of us noticing Arizona walked up and asked what we were talking about. “If shopping’s involved, I want to go too!”

I ended up telling her a partial truth, which was that Jackson and I were throwing the Party this weekend to officially come out as a couple, and Mer wanted to know if I wanted to go shopping. And that’s how I ended up at some high end boutique in downtown Seattle Thursday night with every female I knew and Jackson’s credit card burning a hole in my pocket. Arizona is the last person to tell a secret to, and the whole surgery floor, hell the whole hospital, had 100 percent confirmation that Jackson and I were an official couple by the end of the day. It didn’t bother me, per say. I was planning on marrying the guy within the week after all. I just hated the thought of it getting back to Matthew. I’d hurt him so badly, I didn’t want to rub salt in the wound. But again, I was marrying Jackson if I had to tie him to a chair to do it, and if hurt feelings by an ex were a part of that, then so be it.

Come to find out, wedding dress shopping when all of your friends don’t know that you’re wedding dress shopping is way more fun than it sounds like. When I told them that I was looking for something white because I was going for virginal, Callie said “Still? I thought Jackson took care of that weeks ago!” Did I mention that this specific boutique offered free champagne? The booze was flowing, the laughter was infectious, and I had more fun then I’d had in months. After hours of searching and several different stores, I finally found what I was looking for. It was simple yet gorgeous. Short lacy sleeves with a tight bodice and a loose full shirt that fell below my knees but well above my ankles. A pair of strappy sandals and I was set. One of the shops we’d stopped at along the way was an expensive lingerie store, and the girls made sure I was stocked up on everything from thongs to cupless bras. I wasn’t quite sure what the point of those were other than to tease your significant other, but if that was the sole purpose then I was well prepared for the cause now. To ensure that Jackson didn’t get any wind of the purchases, they bought everything on their credit cards instead of the one I was carrying, and I have enough lingerie now to wear something new every night and still not run out for weeks.   I’m debating whether wearing crotchless panties to my own wedding is tacky or a total turn on.

My parents came in on the Friday before the wedding, and to say I was nervous about it was the understatement of the year. True to his word, Jackson arranged for the Avery private jet to pick them up. What I didn’t realize, and neither did Jackson, (at least I hope he didn’t) was that his mother would be on the plane as well. She apparently rode on it from Boston to Ohio to pick my parents up, then kept the conversation and alcohol flowing until they arrived at the private airstrip in Seattle. My mother left the plane thinking that Catherine Avery was her new best friend, and my father at least wasn’t ready to beat Jackson to a pulp anymore.

We went out to dinner with the Catherine and Webber and Maggie and her boyfriend. All of the family we had in Seattle. I didn’t invite my sisters down for the wedding, this was supposed to be intimate and fun, and they have a way of sucking all the fun out of things that are supposed to celebrate me. We asked Meredith and Derek if they wanted to join us, Meredith is as close to Richard as if she was his own daughter, and she is Maggie’s sister after all, but they thought it should be just us. It was a little awkward when my parents insisted on a group prayer before dinner, but we powered through it, and had a great evening at the end.

-

I’m lying in bed Saturday morning, and I can’t believe today is the day. Jackson is still asleep next to me with the blankets low on his hips, showing the tops of his wonderful ass. Rolling over onto my side, head propped up on my elbow, I can’t get over how beautiful he is. And he’s all mine. I run my fingernail down the middle of his back, from his neck to his ass, and feel an echoing response in my own body as I watch goose bumps break out all over his skin. Smiling, but not wanting to disturb him anymore, I climb out of bed and wrap my robe around myself. I get the coffee going and sit down at the kitchen table with my phone. I told my mom I’d take her shopping this afternoon, and I think I’m going to ask Catherine if she wants to go to. We’re not due to be at the house until 7ish. She’d definitely have more fun riding around in Catherine town car then playing passenger in my old thing. Jackson’s still asleep when the coffee is done, so I take a mug with me into the shower and decide to take a bath.

Married. I am getting married today. And I couldn’t be more relaxed if I tried. Every time I feel the panic start to override me, I think of Jackson, at how calm and at ease he is over this, and I feel the panic ebb away. For not the first time, I send a little thank you to God for taking care of him when he was hurt, and for making him dream of me. I honestly don’t think we’d be here today if he hadn’t have been hurt, as horrible as that is. It was the push we needed. Well, more like a car running you off a cliff, but the theory stands. I dip under the surface, holding my breath and enjoying the weightless sensation in the water, and when I come back up for air Jackson is leaning up against the door frame with a smile on his face. I’m disappointed to see he has his running clothes on instead of joining me in the bath, but since I don’t plan on letting him out of bed tomorrow, maybe it’s best he gets it out of his system today. He leans down and gives me a kiss, then sits on the toilet pulling on his shoes.

“Still planning on going out with your mom today?”

“Yea, and actually, Catherine’s coming too. I thought my mom would have more fun with the way your mother shops then the way I do it.” Jackson scoffs at that, and stands up to start to stretch.

“I’m going to meet Warren today for a basketball game. I’ll be back by 4. Then we can head over to Mer’s house. The caterers already called to confirm they’ll be there by 7 to set up, then come back tomorrow to collect their stuff. “

“Ok, I love you.”

“I love you too.” He gives me another kiss, almost climbing into the bathtub to do so, then heads out of the apartment.

 

Far from not letting Jackson see the dress before the wedding, Jackson helps me into it. Well, help may be a generous description of what’s currently happening. He’s got my zipper halfway up, but then pushed the top half back off of my shoulders to suck and nip at the skin there. Holding my hair up off of my neck with my hands, I can’t exactly claim to be putting up much of a fight. I rub my ass back against the front of his pants, and am rewarded with a little moan against my skin where his mouth is currently sucking in between my shoulder blades.

“We have to get going Jackson. We don’t want to be late to our own party.”  It’s weak, and I know it, but at least I can say I tried.

“Five minutes” he says, reaching around to rub my breasts thru the fabric of my dress. He’s walking me back towards the bed, and bends me over the side of it so that my ass is in the air. He places his hands under my dress and pushes she skirt up over my hips, and exclaims “Jesus April, are you trying to kill me?” When he sees the crotchless panties. Not even bothering to take his pants all the way off, he unclasps his buckle and pulls down his zipper, pushing his pants and underwear down enough to free himself.

He’s right. It doesn’t take very long. The feel of him entering me from this position is exquisite. I’m wound up so tight with nerves and excitement that I’m moaning out my orgasm before he hits a dozen strokes. A dozen more and he follows me over the edge, draping himself across my back, supporting with weight with a hand on either side of me on the bed.

It takes me a few minutes to recover, and another few minutes to make myself presentable. With a final kiss on my shoulders, Jackson finally zips up my dress for me. He has his pants back on, but his dress shirt is still open over his muscle shirt and I have to physically remove myself from his presence to avoid a repeat encounter. In the end we’re only a few minutes later than we said we’d be, and the Shepherds are wearing identical faces that say they know exactly what caused the delay.

 

I’m having so much fun, and I know immediately that Jackson was right. This is the best way we could have done this. Sophia and Zola are playing tag with little Bailey trailing behind them, and the squeals of their laughter makes a wonderful counter point to the adults talking about tumor resections and whether they think we can get more in our budgets to do more research next year. Leo is being passed from person to person, and I see the Granny lust strong in my mother’s eyes.

It feels so nice to be openly affectionate and not have to hide it anymore. We’ve danced some and ate some and generally enjoyed the company of our friends. I was worried about having my parents in a room with nobody but surgeons, but Webber and Owen have stayed close to them the entire night, regaling them with stories from the hospital and about me when I was less of a badass probably. We arranged to have the minister arrive about an hour after everyone else did to give everyone a chance to settle in. When we saw Derek let the minister into the house, I grab Jacksons hand and whispered to him, “She’s here.”

At Jacksons head nod, Derek turned down the music, grinning ear to ear. Meredith too wear’s a face that was sure to give it away if anyone was paying any attention to her.

“Hey guys, can we have your attention for a minute.” Holding Jacksons hand is the only thing anchoring me to the floor. I feel like I’m floating. With everyone’s attention on us, I feel like my smile is going to break my face.

“April and I want to thank you guys for coming out here tonight. And we want to apologize to you. I understand from some of you that we’ve sometimes been difficult to be around. We know that _you_ knew that we were meant to be together long before we figured it out ourselves.”

“Seriously Avery.” Alex pipes up. “Do you know how much money I’ve lost betting on you guys over the years. It’s about time you handled your business dude.” The whole room erupts into laughter and applause, and I can’t help but silently agree with Alex some. My parents are watching the interactions around the room, and it makes me hope that now they’ll truly understand that this wasn’t a rash decision. Quite the opposite, it was a decision that took way too long to make.

“Anyways. We want to apologize for putting you guys thru all of that. You’re are family and our closest friends.” He squeezes my hand and looks at me one last time before continuing on.

“To make it up to you all, we’d like to formally welcome you to our wedding. Right here, right now.” It takes a minute for the news to sink in, but when it does, the room explodes into noise and motion.

“You’re getting married?” “Oh my god I’m so happy.” “Talk about handling your business!”

“Arizona, don’t cry honey.” “Did you know?” and “You knew and didn’t tell me!?!” This is from Maggie to Mer, who is preening like a peacock.

“Lost again Karev” comes from Bailey. Over the shoulder of the person hugging me, I see Karev throwing back the rest of his drink then reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. He counts out the appropriate amount of bills then hands the wad to Warren. Jo is laughing so hard she has tears running down her face.

My mother and Catherine hug each other, then push themselves to the front of the line to hug each of us. My father shakes Jacksons hand while Catherine pulls me to her, whispering in my ear “it’s about damn time. You are going to make one hell of an Avery child.”

I’m never going to make it thru the night if I’m already starting to cry. When my mother replaces Catherine she asks me if I’m sure, I tell her with tears in my eyes “More than God himself.”

It only takes a few minutes to get the show on the road. The minister stands in the middle of the room with her bible in hand talking to Amelia. Jackson is standing next to her, chatting with Callie and Derek who are both crowding close. When my father and I round the corner from down the hallway where Meredith shoved us, the room falls silent with excitement and expectation and all our friends step back to leave space around Jackson and the minister. With my arm in his, my father leads me the few feet to the middle of the room, then takes my hand and places it in Jacksons. With a quick kiss on my cheek and a firm squeeze on the shoulder to Jackson, he goes and stands with Catherine and Webber and my mom.

“The love in this room is palpable.” Starts the minister. “Not just from April and Jackson, though as has been pointed out, I think, their love is obvious to anyone who has eyes. But the love coming from the people April and Jackson have chosen to surround themselves with during this most special time is as clear as the sky is blue. In my experience, you can tell a lot about a couple by the wedding they choose to have and the people they chose to have around them during that time. What tonight tells me is that April and Jacksons love is pure, simple, and supported. That no matter what life may throw at them, they’ll have the love and comfort of their friends and family to get them through times both good and bad. Look at you all! All on your feet, holding hands and inching closer, desperate for the minute you can let loose your excitement again.” At that we all turn to look at each other, and laughter and hugs are shared amongst us.

“The bible tells us Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. It is obvious to me and to those in this room that yours is a love that will last eternal. Jackson and April, I understand that you’ve written your own vows.

We nod our affirmative, and I squeeze Jacksons hand to indicate that she should go first.

“Mark told me, before he died, well he asked me to promise him something. If you love someone, he said, you tell them. Even if you're scared that it's not the right thing. Even if you're scared that it will cause problems. Even if you're scared it will burn your life to the ground. You say it, and you say it loud. And then you go from there....

I always considered myself brave. A man’s man as it was. But I was too scared to say what I felt. I was scared that it wasn’t the right thing, and afraid that it would burn both of our lives to the ground. But you April, you were brave enough for the both of us. Thank you for taking that leap. Thank you for telling me that you love me. I promise to spend the rest of my life proving to you that it wasn’t a leap made in error.” I’m actively crying now, as is almost every person in the room from the sounds of the sniffles, but I have no eyes for anyone except for Jackson.

He slips a thin diamond encrusted wedding band that matches my engagement ring on to my ring finger, then brings my hand up to his lips to place a kiss on my palm.

“Jackson, you were my first. In every way. My first person, the first person to accept me for all of my quirks, my first protector and defender. Remember when you punched Karev for me?”

“I do!” says Meredith. “It was awesome!” Comes from Callie. Even the minister laughs at that.

“Whether I admitted it at the time, you were my first love, and you’ll be my last and only. When I thought that I may lose you last spring, I was so scared I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t sleep because I was afraid that the minute I shut my eyes we’d lose you, and the idea that I may never get the chance to talk to you again, to look into your eyes again, was enough to bring me to my knees. Which it did, several times. I’m sorry that it took me so long to realize that the tightening in my belly I got whenever you walked into a room was love, and the need for you to be the last person I spoke to before I fall asleep every night was love. I’m sorry that I didn’t force you into the chapel to marry you the second you woke up from that coma. But I promise that now that I have you, I’m never ever going to let you go. You were my first everything Jackson, and for that I thank you. Thank you for teaching me how to love.”

Without waiting for the minister to say so, he picks me up and kisses me. The whole room whoops and cheers, and after a minute the minister says “We’re not quite done here guys” with laughter in her voice. Jackson lowers my feet back to the ground, but doesn’t let me go.

Starting again she says “I’m reminded that the bible says that there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. Your love for each other drove out your fear, and we are here to celebrate that with you. Assuming we have no objections?” she pauses for the barest of moments then “I thought so. By the power vested in me by the Lord God and the state of Washington, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss your bride. Again.”

This time my feet stay on the ground when he kisses me. I put both of my hands on his face to help keep myself steady as we’re crowded by friends and family. The kids run in and hug us around our waist and legs, and Arizona has her arms around Callie, crying harder than anyone in the room. The men are slapping each other on the back while the women all hug and all the couples are sneaking each other kisses.

And just like that, I am married to Dr. Jackson Avery.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that I changed tenses half way through the chapter. Ooops, my bad. 
> 
> This was basically the wedding my husband and I were planning. We instead grabbed our best friend and parents and went to Vegas, but we sent out party invitations. They knew ahead of time that we were getting married at the party, but rather than just waste all the time and effort and expense on planning a traditional wedding, we just wanted to party with our friends with good food and good liquor. Knowing what we do about Japril, I like to think that, with the more relaxed April we had at the end, they'd be happy with a party too.


End file.
